2007-04-13

Friday the 13th is always a thrill! Just the idea of such a magical day sharpens one’s attention! In the event, with the exception of Traveller One, which is still offering me catalyst aplenty as I try to work with a failing machine, all went very well.

After Morning Offering, Jim tugged on his winter underwear and bundled up for mowing on Avalon. He was there most of the day, tidying the land we so love. The mowing went well and he reports that the meadow has begun to recover from some of Bruce and Vara’s unfinished experiments, which is good news. Bruce had tried to plow with our tractor, but did not know just how to set the blade and he tore up the ground badly. Vara and he also decided at one point that there was a patch of negative energy in that innocent meadow and had ripped up a lot of sod. Last fall, Jim worked to smooth the surface of the land, and now he reports that fescue is now growing there again.

The thing about Avalon is that it is an energy collector, being a valley surrounded with high knobs all around it. Whatever energy you bring to that magical valley, its signal is enhanced. Because both Bruce and Vara were going through difficult passages in their lives when they were on Avalon, they experienced difficulty and said Avalon was not a good place for them. I would agree. They were not ready to look at those truths which Avalon intensified for their focused attention. That’s OK! We need to progress along our own time lines. I think both Bruce and Vara are in places that nurture them better, now, and as always we wish them well.

However for Jim, Gary and me, Avalon is perfect, glorious and helpful. The energy there seems wonderfully electric and alive. Avalon is alive! And she welcomes us so sweetly. I doubt we will be able to move there any time soon, for our finances are not up to paying for the needed building of our home there, but we’re headed that way!

I spent my work day on one piece of the pile of snail mail, which is quite slender now. Barbara L had written to request that I do a series of articles on the summer camp I attended. I have put off writing those for months. I danced, from age 5 through 17, for two months each summer at a dance camp called The Noyes Rhythm Foundation. It is located on two beautiful farms which verge a pretty lake in Connecticut’s countryside near Middletown, Connecticut. My grandmother, who was one of Florence Fleming Noyes’s original students in New York in the early twentieth century, was the accompanist for the children's camp's dance classes, which were held in a large Pavilon in a clearing in the forest rolling down to the lake. The open-air structure, with its sprung board floor, was perfect for dancing.

Barbara asked for an account of my memories of my grandmother, my mother and myself at Noyes. Since all three of us had extensive experiences at Noyes Camp, there is a lot to say. Because of this delay with the new computer, I have finally excavated my way down to it! During the morning I completed the writing on my grandmother and in the afternoon I wrote about my mother and Noyes. Tomorrow I hope to have the time to finish with a memory of my own years there.

Jim arrived back home, having finished his mowing, in mid-afternoon and spent the rest of his daylight work time maintaining his equipment and putting it to bed for the weekend. We descended into a most pleasant evening, bathing and catching some good TV - Democracy Now, Jon and Steve’s political satire and a block of Stargate episodes – a new episode and also a behind-the-scenes look at the Stargate mythology.

As a scholar, which I have not actively been for a long time, I was appalled at their casual and smug assumption, on that mythology show, that their use of mythological characters’ names, like Ra, Thor and Merlin, makes people know more about the myths. In fact, it has twisted the various mythical characters until there is no recognizing them. They’ve simply looted the world’s store of mythology for recognizable names and then changed their story to suit Stargate.

Now I like Stargate, but I do not think they have done anything admirable with the myths of these older cultures. In fact, they may have misinformed a whole generation of kids to the point where the children will become adults who think that the Egyptians worshipped the Ra of Stargate who, in their story, is evil and cruel.

I offered the closing prayer at the Gaia Meditation after supper and said good night to Gary, who had put in a gargantuan work day doing the shopping and then the household cooking for the whole of next week. Jim and I came upstairs and snuggled with the cats until lights out at midnight.