2006-11-21

Frosty mailboxes and the scent of wood smoke! I love this time of year, when we can wear yummy, soft sweaters and snuggle into thick socks and cozy wool skirts and lined jeans. It is so good to breathe the air, a free woman, today.

I checked to be sure that Ian had straightened out the quote sequence in Chapter Two and sent both the now-complete Chapter Two and the rest of The Choice 101 – its Preface, Introduction and Chapter One – to the Hays. I got a note asking if we could talk further now that they have seen all I have done so far, and so I shall call them tomorrow, if they do not call me first. I spent quite a bit of time with my letter to them, as their support and encouragement have been remarkable and I wanted to thank them adequately.

I left early for lunch as Dianne and I had picked this day for some girlfriend time. We ventured downtown for a walk along Main Street, a picturesque downtown street full of fascinating art galleries and boutiques as well as tons of good restaurants, all in the preserved and restored historic buildings of the riverboat days in Big L. We had a wonderful time shoring up each others’ spirits and eating some excellent food at Proofs, a restaurant which fronts a big photography gallery which also houses many other handmade items for sale – if you have pockets full of cash! We contented ourselves with picking our favorites while having no attachment to buying anything.

Back home, I got a confirmation back from Michele M that it would be fine to use her “diamond cross” image for the front cover of A Book of Days, and that it is OK to make the background indigo. Now I am only waiting to hear if the book’s producer likes the image and feels he can work it into a cover design.

Jim and Gary worked all the afternoon in our yard. At last our yard has had the Jim’s Lawn Service treatment! It is a work of art! It shines! Jim says ours is the hardest yard he ever details, because of all his plantings and walks and so forth. But when he finishes, what a delight to the eye. I saw an Anchorage City car stop here a couple of days ago - even with all the leaves still on our ground - and take quite a few photos of the gazebo Jim built long ago, as a meditation hut, in the back of our yard, so other eyes do see the beauty as well. They were probably trying to get a nice photo of Wagner Park from the vantage point of our gazebo, as the gazebo is on the boundary between our land and the park.

I sent my brother Tommy the “Whoever Would Be Great Among You” music which Gary had kindly scanned in for me. That is the song he would like us to work up for offering to our clan at our Christmas gathering. He immediately replied to me, asking if Rosie, my oldest niece and his oldest child, could learn the song too. That solves the problem nicely – there are three parts in the song. We should have fun sharing that lovely little folk-art piece of sung scripture with the clan. And it is Tommy’s first effort to sing with me since his choosing to stop in about 1982, because he felt I was not acceptable as a Christian. So things have softened there, finally, which I am glad to see.

Ken B sent me a riveting and poignant piece written by Richard Harris, angry and moving, as a comment on my UPI article on Pope Benedict’s speech condemning Muslims and the Islamic world’s leadership’s response. The poem is too long to share here, but here is an excerpt:

“There Are Too Many Saviors on My Cross
There are too many saviors on my cross, lending their blood to flood out my ballot box with needs of their own. Who put you there? Who told you that that was your place?
You carry me secretly naked in your heart and clothe me publicly in armor crying "God is on our side," yet I openly cry Who is on mine? Who? Tell me, who?”

I wrote John Player thanking him for his kind words and encouraging him in his spiritual work. He, like so many of us, feels the sting of solitude when he wants to talk about spiritually oriented ideas, as his beloved circle of family and friends is not interested in these matters. It seems a most common situation for people who have awakened spiritually. That’s very encouraging, though, that I was able to make a good contact by a few words. Hopefully that is a lot of what we do here at L/L Research – have available for folks some good things to work with in the spiritual process.

I shared a couple of e-mails with Jean-Claude K, who is encouraging me in my idea of doing a singing project, recording my voice deep in a cave around here somewhere. All caves are sacred spaces and we have lots of them in Kentucky, which has limestone everywhere. I believe I will approach Rick C about recording me sometime when it is warmer weather – caves are always around 55 degrees F, but it is nice to come back out into warmth. Why travel the world to a pyramid when one has sacred spaces close all around one?

The remainder of the afternoon was spent writing to Carol C in response to her letter asking me about the way L/L Research is set up, what its tax-exempt status is and similar questions. She is interested in seeing if she can volunteer her grant-writing skills on our behalf. Hope, hope, hope! It would be grand to receive grant money to pay the substantial bills which our little company receives each month. It takes a lot of funding to pay the admin and bookkeeper, keep the books in print, pay for the web site and the broadcasting and make new books. Trust me: if you would like to donate, we can definitely find a good use for the money!

The rest of the day was a rest and relaxation. Romi and Gary joined us for supper and good conversation. After the Gaia Meditation, with Romi offering the closing prayer, they both departed and Jim and I watched a James Bond movie until we fell asleep around midnight.