September 18, 2015, Prescott- One thing about transitions, there are small stretches of time when money is tight, communication gets garbled and difficulties ensue.  I was raised to work through them, and so it is, right now.  I have had a few confrontations with people, both online and in real time, over the past three days.  In each case, rather than start World War 10,000, I have chosen to rely on my intuition, as to what the other person(s) was/were getting at.  One is simply a snarky, and somewhat abrasive, individual who enjoys a good comeback.  A few of those have defused that mess.  Another wants to know whether I have just moved on.  That is really up to that person.  I am still here, and as said earlier, I will not impose myself on anyone who seems to want to be left alone.  Another individual doesn’t want anyone who doesn’t drink, and doesn’t seem to have much money, in his establishment. (It is a restaurant, not a bar, per se, so the clientele ought to be mixed).

I sense the mood in this town is changing.  Hipsters tend not to like anyone who isn’t strutting their cash, and I see more hipsters around, over the past few months.  I haven’t had much money, over the past six years or so, though that is about to change, albeit gradually, and modestly.  I will be EARNING a living wage, starting next month.  Life will be more on an even keel.

I’m not going anywhere, though.  My son is in San Diego, until the end of next year, at least, and I have a growing number of friends in Los Angeles. Prescott is six hours from San Diego, seven from LA, and proximity rules.  I still have a good many friends here, even those with whom I seem to be having misunderstandings.  I am also very much enamoured of a place where I can walk just about everywhere that matters, and drive to the rest of the places, in a half hour or less.

In the next several posts, I will be commenting on points made by Chief Phil Lane, Jr., who heads up a spiritual retreat in Surrey, BC, as to the development of a spiritual community.  His heartfelt and well-considered tenets could be applied in a good many settings.  I stand in a circle, where heart, patience and intuition matter.

September 17, 2015,Prescott-

The wounded advance,

Towards the distracted,

equally bleeding foe.

The battle is chimeric,

Quixotic, of unknown origin.

These battles always are,

It seems.

How did we get here?,

Asks the target of his wrath.

What does that matter?,

Snarls the knight errant.

The battle is joined,

and I shall be the victor.

What are the spoils?,

Asks his erstwhile friend.

What does that matter?,

Fumes the attacker.

The battle is joined,

and I will be the victor.

Soon he stood,

Above the prone figure,

Savouring his pile of ashes.

September 16, 2015, Prescott-  Someone remarked to me, online,this evening, that my generation is finished and that I should get in my “slot”, with regard to working with youth.  I know enough about this person to understand that he was just trying to get a rise out of me.  It didn’t work, in that way, but it did strike me as ironic,as did his plaint that I was “bouncing around too much”.

The irony is that I have entered  a five-year period of relative settlement, following four years of “bouncing around”.  At a time in life when many people, especially those in the Western countries, almost demand that we retire from work, and berate those who don’t, I am returning to a regular work schedule.  The reasons are two:  First, I am not ready to leave the world of education behind.  Second, another Western value is that we remain independent and do not burden others, financially.

I recently read of a woman, age 100, who is still working as an educator. I applaud her! In my case, I plan to work until age 70, take a two-year sabbatical of focused travel, then return to work for three more years or so.  I think 75 will be a good age for me to stop gainful employment, but I don’t know as I will ever occupy a “slot”, determined by others.  Conversely, I don’t ever presume to think I will know what is best for others.

So, as my transition back to having a room full of children as my daily, and long-term, responsibility begins, and I get acquainted with my students, starting next week, I ask the gadfly, and all others who look askance at those of us who do not go gently into that good night, to stay tuned.  I have lots left.

September 15, 2015, Prescott-  Most of you know I am mildly autistic, and have struggled with being in situations where I must mingle with strangers, especially if they themselves are reserved.  Talking with people on the phone is worse, and I usually try to be as specific and brief as possible, on that medium.

Today, I worked with a class of emotionally-handicapped children, with plenty of adult assistance.  A child in the room is severely autistic and has serious outbursts, on occasion.  Today, he had several, all handled very well by his one-on-one assistant.  Dealing with him, per se, did not trouble me.  The whole scenario, however, did trigger some feelings of reduced self-worth in me.

I was never outwardly aggressive or raging, as a child- preferring to withdraw from my surroundings, in times of conflict, and work things out in some sort of fantasy realm. When I left the school, at the end of the day, I found several of those old ghosts were revisiting me.  The difference now is, I have plenty of friends on social media sites, and several friends in my Faith group, here in the Prescott area.  I am less certain about people outside my Faith group, but I realize that part of that is my own tendency to shrink back, when feeling awkward.

Triggers, I have learned from reading “The Peaceful Warrior Collection”, are signals that more work is needed on those issues. The biggest one is my own perception that, to at least three people I have regarded as friends, around here, I am little more than a nuisance, and so I have stopped communicating with them altogether.  It’s one of the things on which I must work, internally.

SSeptember 14, 2015, Prescott- First, my apologies to friendly readers- Heath Muchena, JoEllen Coney, Starman Jones, Richie Salgado and Michel Fauquet. I found your lovely comments in my Pending file, which has been ignored even longer than my Flickr site. I have cleaned it up and approved all of your comments.

I am sad to hear that another Xanga friend, Sister Mae, has died. She was a rock-solid friend, when I was on the old network. I hadn’t heard from her, on Xanga 2.0. Now, I know why.

My new position is three weeks away. I worked today on a one-day post and will do the same tomorrow. There ought to be several other posts, this week and next, in the run-up to Fall Break, which will see me enjoying a bit of the high country. I haven’t decided exactly where,yet, but I know it’ll be in-state.

Choices, we make and choices we own. In accepting the charter school position, I had to decline a Red Cross post. I think that position will go to someone who has actually worked in Social Services. Several other changes, vis-a-vis my weekday schedule, will come about, after October 12. I own those, also.

My erstwhile tendency to walk off and leave things hanging came to me in a dream, last light, with Penny warning me that this is a feature of mine that I should relegate to the past. Yes, I have made a world of progress, in that respect. Focus is improving, day by day.

Someone commented this afternoon, that I have “bedroom eyes”. Yikes! I thought we had left that term in the scrapheap of shallowness. Since this person is not within my age-range, I will take it as a misguided compliment, and leave it at that.

It is nice to be appreciated, and it is nice to have a few things- pending.

eptember 14, 2015, Prescott- First, my apologies to friendly readers- Heath Muchena, JoEllen Coney, Starman Jones, Richie Salgado and Michel Fauquet. I found your lovely comments in my Pending file, which has been ignored even longer than my Flickr site. I have cleaned it up and approved all of your comments.

I am sad to hear that another Xanga friend, Sister Mae, has died. She was a rock-solid friend, when I was on the old network. I hadn’t heard from her, on Xanga 2.0. Now, I know why.

My new position is three weeks away. I worked today on a one-day post and will do the same tomorrow. There ought to be several other posts, this week and next, in the run-up to Fall Break, which will see me enjoying a bit of the high country. I haven’t decided exactly where,yet, but I know it’ll be in-state.

Choices, we make and choices we own. In accepting the charter school position, I had to decline a Red Cross post. I think that position will go to someone who has actually worked in Social Services. Several other changes, vis-a-vis my weekday schedule, will come about, after October 12. I own those, also.

My erstwhile tendency to walk off and leave things hanging came to me in a dream, last light, with Penny warning me that this is a feature of mine that I should relegate to the past. Yes, I have made a world of progress, in that respect. Focus is improving, day by day.

Someone commented this afternoon, that I have “bedroom eyes”. Yikes! I thought we had left that term in the scrapheap of shallowness. Since this person is not within my age-range, I will take it as a misguided compliment, and leave it at that.

It is nice to be appreciated, and it is nice to have a few things- pending.

September 13, 2015, Prescott-   I spent three hours today, in one of the most worthwhile of endeavours.  The Empty Bowls Project is an annual event in Prescott, on Courthouse Square, where so many of our great community events take place.  I was given the job of Gazpacho Ladeler.  Each of us ladelers gave a contributing patron 6 oz. of soup in either a ceramic bowl, which they had purchased, or in a free Styrofoam bowl.  Patrons could come back for second helpings, so one or two of the more popular soups (i.e. lobster bisque) ran out.

Various restaurants in Prescott and nearby Prescott Valley sent a plenitude of soups, most of them hot.  The gazpacho seemed to be the only one that wasn’t.  Even so, there was just about a bowl left over, when we stopped at 2:10, and the chef came to get her materials. My tangible reward for this effort was two 16 oz. cups of soup, one minestrone and one coconut cauliflower curry.  Far greater, of course, is knowing that a substantial amount of money was raised for the benefit of local food banks.

I went back to the house afterward, and finished reading “Sacred Journey of the Peaceful Warrior”, which recounts Dan Millman’s experiences, whilst on Oahu and Molokai.  I sat, totally concentrating on the last fifty pages of the book, and journeyed with him through various dimensions and states of mind.  He did not use hallucinogens, and I can identify with that, since my own mind can make its way to worlds that hardly make sense, in a tangible context.  This afternoon, I only followed his lead.

After my reading was finished, I was given the message to prepare a certain soup of my own.  I first peeled the rind off a butternut squash, after cleaning out its seeds and slicing off the ends.  Then, I did the same with an eggplant and a red pepper, adding lean ground beef and a few figs, with various seasonings.  Turmeric was put in there, for some reason.  I don’t usually add it to a vegetable soup, but there it was.

The scraps and seeds were then buried in the backyard, in an impromptu garden plot.  I’ve never heard of planting so close to Fall, but that was the message I got- and well, trust the journey.  We’ll see what transpires.

I will regard the resulting concoction as a soup of good fortune- celebrating what appear to be doors opening for me, even as a door of friendship, of two years’ duration, seems to be closing.  Everything happens in its time.

September 12, 2015, Prescott- Several things happened today.  One of my brothers turned 60.  I made my usual morning visit to the Prescott Farmer’s Market, and had my usual cup of coffee with a sweet treat.  After buying a few vegetables, I encountered my good friends, Happy and Johnny.  Since they had a booth at the Market, with foraged goodies from a nearby forest, I spent close to an hour, talking with them, nibbling on things like manzanita berries, sweet acorns and prickly pear fruit.  I even peeled and sliced a prickly pear fruit- if you ever get the chance, first double check the rind for small spines.  I caught a  tiny nub of spine in my finger, but got it out, without any hassle.

This afternoon, lunch was a grilled hot dog, courtesy of a Recovery Group, so I gave them a small donation.  Soup from Shannon’s Deli also filled the bill.  I went to a memorial service, in mid-afternoon, for the parent of a friend.  So many elders have left this year- and many babies are coming, to take their places in this world.  I was pleased to see at least seven infants and toddlers, in various places.  They are all so busy.  I wonder, at what do we start to lose the focus we had as infants, mastering mobility and as toddlers, absorbing so much data about the world all around us.

Happy says, “Breathe in bliss”.  I notice that, no matter the constraints put on me, I can do that.  Breathing mindfully clears a lot of tension and confusion.  It can have an effect on those in one’s immediate surroundings, as well.  I am as at peace, right now, as I was when at Tuileries, in Paris, or walking a trail in El Dorado Springs, Colorado.

Sadly, it doesn’t affect everyone.  I lost a friend, this evening; but as I heard her voice fading, over the phone, and said my goodbye, a strange calm came over me, and I sat, in perfect stillness, for several minutes.  A message came to me: “You are a threat to no one, and if they perceive you as such, perhaps it is a reflection of their own view of the Universe.”

Breathe in bliss.  Doors are opening.

September 11, 2015, Prescott- I checked on my pay status, early  this morning, and found that the employer in question had not deposited my due payment.  So, after getting self together, I went to the office of my immediate supervisor, who looked into the matter and arranged for due payment for me, and several others who were likewise inconvenienced, either by a system glitch or by the negligence of clerks.

This being the fourteenth anniversary of the various attacks on U.S. soil, I think about systemic failures, large and small.  It’s quite clear that the New York attacks were the subject of chatter, days before they happened, but human error, or insouciance, led to a lack of defensive action.  Of course, implosion devices, installed during the Clinton years, led to the collapse of the Twin Towers, rather than an outward explosion, which would have compounded the deaths and destruction in lower Manhattan.  That is no comfort at all for the thousands of families affected, in perpetuity, by the horror of that day, and its subsequent days of loss and suffering.

The other two major events of that day seem more surreal.  There is some doubt, in several circles, as to the truth in the matter of the Pentagon attack.  I have seen the Memorial, and am certain that all those who are remembered there, died a horrible death, aboard a plane.  Naysayers, who wonder if there was indeed a plane, are no help to the families who lost people that day.  The most likely scenario is that the plane vaporized, though the question remains:  “What was done with the wreckage?”  For reasons of national security, we may never know.

I have also been to the site of the Pennsylvania crash.  The Earth was scorched, and there were signs of a huge crash there, when Penny and I stopped there, in 2009.  There are sufficient voice recordings to back up the reports of that day.  The farmer, on whose land the crash occurred, had no reason to simply give up that section of his property to the U.S. Government, on a whim.  So, I am sure this event occurred, as reported.

There will always be failures of systems, large and small, whenever those in the system make errors in judgment, are fatigued, or get distracted. My father’s, and one of my high school mentor’s, exhortations to ALWAYS have a Plan B, have come in handy, time and again- and never more so than now.  We may very well face a time when government grinds to a screeching halt, the finances we take for granted dissipate, however temporarily, and we are left with whatever family or community we have had the wisdom to cultivate- for a fair length of time.

I am not a doomsayer, or one who believes in a cup half-empty, yet being prepared is more than a Scout motto.

September 10, 2015, Prescott-  The day found me back at work with a disabled boy, and my mother turned 87, a fabulous age, in my book. She went line dancing, which does my heart good.

Mom has always taught us to show compassion, to put others first.  So it has gone, and it has been to my benefit also- because of the Shakras.  Indian medicine tells us there are seven shakras, or regions of energy concentration, in and around the human body.  The first, in the genitalia, deal with personal survival.  The second, in the lower viscera, focus on sexuality and creativity.  The abdominal region focuses on personal power and discipline.

Most of us fond ourselves going back and forth from these “lower” areas of focus, even while priding ourselves on “higher” pursuits.  A couple of years ago, I set out on a spiritually-focused journey, only to fall apart at the seams, midway through, and had to regroup and move forward, once again.

In 2014, whilst in Europe, I found myself more and more focused in the area of the fourth shakra- that of transpersonal love. You guessed it: The fourth shakra is in the region of the heart and lungs.  This is said to feel like the most satisfying, because it is here that service is the main focus.

There are three higher shakras, however, and I was reminded of them, whilst reading a couple of other chapters of “Sacred Journey of the Peaceful Warrior”, which recounts Dan Millman’s experiences in Hawaii and Japan.  A Native Hawaiian healer reviews the shakras with him, calling them floors in “The Tower of Life”, a term first used by Sallie Nichols, in the book “Jung and Tarot”.

The fifth shakra, centered in the neck, is focused on pure inspiration and spirituality.  I’ve been in that state a few times.  Perhaps you have, too.  The sixth, focused in the cerebrum, is called “Pure Light”, communion with the Spirit.  It is no surprise to me, that my messages from the Spirit Realm have come either in dreams, or in waking visions, when I am not concerned with the business at hand.

The seventh shakra is not even in the body. It is in one’s aura, directly above the head, and features Pure Spirit, with no ego left.  This, to me, is the meaning of the Zen teaching that nothingness is the highest state which one may attain.  Being one with the Universe is its manifestation.

As I said earlier, most of us go back and forth, between the first four or five shakras.  I’ve been blessed to have experienced #6, and I know many others who have, as well. To be in one of the higher states, most of the time, is fulfillment.  To handle the lower urges, and get back to spiritual progress, is the norm for me, more and more often.  That said, I think I can wait a while for Shakra #7.  There are too many people about whom I care deeply.

September 9, 2015, Prescott- When I arrived at school, this morning, I had a feeling the day would be different.  Thirty minutes later, I learned that my immediate charge would be absent today.  After about fifteen minutes in the front office, it was decided I would assist the teachers’ clerk. So, my day was spent photocopying, collating and stapling.  Much was accomplished in those areas.  I don’t do well with sitting around idly.

Some people were amazed that I was doing this,but being flexible is one of the things that come with being the eldest of five children, growing up in a house that was originally meant for four people, and there were seven of us.  Being flexible is one of the things that come with being an educator in a state that is only slowly coming to realize that the welfare of children is more important than tax breaks for private prisons, or perks for office holders.  The first example is one I treasure.  The second is one I value, but for the sake of those children,  I wish it were not so.

Flexibility of mind is a definite challenge to ego.  Without it, though, I would never have left alcohol behind, never have pursued, and entered, into wedlock, and certainly would not have settled down. Flexibility of mind, and of heart, is the ground floor of my salvation.

I think these things as we continue into another silly season of electoral politics.  With Aviici, I am wont to say, “Wake me up when it’s all over”.  That wouldn’t be flexible of me though, would it?