2006-10-18

This was the first of the housekeeping days I have given myself to get back in some kind of order – chaos threatens! I have promised myself that by next Monday, no matter what, I shall be back to writing on The Choice, and to a normal schedule of old editing as well. In the meantime, I am working on e-mail, bookkeeping and a myriad of miscellaneous chores.

This morning I wrote an article for UPI. I had been much moved by the experiences of my reunion at MacDuffie, and I attempted to capture those feelings on paper, although I am not sure that I succeeded very well. I think perhaps I was too close to the event to get the very best perspective. So much about the issue of violence in the schools is utterly tragic; so much of it is beyond my ken. In a way I am like the bystander who tries to explain why a hit and run driver just demolished my friend on the street. I have no idea.

In another way, as part of the tribe of humanity, I need to know what has gone awry and I need to alter that within myself.

Jim was somewhat late coming back from his mowing morning, so while awaiting him I worked again with our web guy’s requests. We are working together to regularize the look of the Carla Niche page, and to place brief but good explanations by each type of offering. Today we agreed on calling all the meetings we have “Gatherings”, whether they are Homecomings or not. We also worked with the text introducing my tape letters, bringing that into a first-person mode, as is the rest of the text on that page.

Jim and I had a good lunch and did our stretching exercises. Then he went to garden, a special project for a customer, and I sat down at the financials desk to work on the books. The one thing I had not done before leaving for MacDuffie last Thursday was to go through the QuickBooks and the paper ledger for L/L Research for September and October, checking the one against the other. I did that and found what I expected – a disaster. I pecked away at it from the end of lunch until 4 PM. I am not convinced I did anything positive, since we were further from a balance when I quit than when I began, but I put in my time! I thank the good Lord that I am not the one responsible for balancing that account.

In reading my column to Mick at lunch, I had found an error, so I wrote to Larry to fix it. Then it was back to the e-mail once again. I took some time just to read what I had; determining that no one with whom I was corresponding needed something from me right now. Then it was back to working on the Carla Niche. Our web guy is trying to organize everything, which is such a signal blessing. You have to realize how stymied I have been with this material and for how long.

Over a year ago now, we started a new generation of B4, the web site which was intended for spiritual activism and nest-building. I envisioned a kind of home on the net where people could roost to discuss or to share their passion. It was a very usual and average kind of vision. I would call it well-intentioned and modest.

What we had from the previous generation of this web site was a forum which was muddling along nicely, my Camelot Journal and the Avalon Journal. The Camelot Journal entries had never been regularized, as I had a series of web masters who felt that I simply did not know what was best for the site. It was an unreal feeling, expressing my wishes to these people, only to have it explained to me that what I wanted was not convenient, or was not the right way, or simply was not going to happen because it was too hard. It was good to remove that site, as it seemed impossible to do good work there or keep a loving and positive vibration going.

The Journals and other bits of information from B4 were saved to a CD which was sent to our web guy. He is now doing the slow, patient and picky work of taking all those bits and pieces which have never been well organized and bringing them into a consistent format which the reader will find easy to use. And so I pen a paean to him!

We praise our modest web guy
Whose horse is strong and true,
He rides it forth to battle
With bytes and bits and glue!
In love and light, in faith and hope,
He’ll solve the problem-He’s no dope!

The last conundrum I faced for the site had to do with the Wooded Glen Homecoming back in August of 2005. We never got a niche together for that, although I did attempt such a thing. The one thing remaining on the CD were notes taken by Jeremy W. They are in a somewhat unfinished state, being – literally – notes, in an outline form which is hard to read for sense, as it lacks sentences and also lacks a conventional, expanded, outline form.

I could read the outline code which Jeremy undoubtedly learned to use when pursuing his studies. So I took one speech’s notes and rendered them more readable, putting them in the classic outline form. I sent that off to see whether our web guy feels the notes are useful enough to our readers to “unencrypt” the other speech’s notes. I suggested that if we use those notes, we use them only for the speeches for which we have no transcripts yet.

As I closed down for the day, I sent Barbara B another note as we continue to close in on a relay phone date next week.

After a lovely bath, I was off to choir practice while Jim met a fellow who ended up buying Jim’s clamshell leaf-pick-up attachment. It does not pay Jim to use this attachment, although it works well, because only one of his customers cares to pick her leaves up, rather than demolish them and put them back into the soil as a dressing, which is what Jim’s Gator Blades and mulching plate do.

At choir practice, in addition to singing, I organized the choir to help with a church photo project next month and sold some more choir CDs.

I got home just in time for the Gaia Meditation, with Jim praying at the end. Then Gary, Jim and I conversed for a while about the QuickBooks interviews coming up. Gary has been working with those who have called in and we will do interviews next week.

We corralled the wandering Sedgie and came upstairs for a good night snuggle, turning the lights out at 11 PM.