2008-08-30

After Morning Offering, which Mick and I shared with Mel and Aaron, the Homecoming Circle gathered under the big tent for our presentations. Gary had put my segment first, so I offered my thoughts on the uses of adversity, describing how I came to begin writing my Holly Journal and having a chapel time each day all to myself.

Steve T presented next, sharing his wry comments on the trials and tribulations of life in service to others. This topic was vastly popular! We ran behind in time because of the energetic discussion, so I volunteered to make shorter work of Bob R’s topic than the appointed half hour.

Bob had asked me to present for him on the topic of increasing the numbers for harvest, riffing off the latest volume of Handbook for the New Paradigm, Messages for the Ground Crew. I described the basic concept, which is that we have the power to change our reality by the way we live and envision our lives. I shared the prayer, “I am a human being. Help me to become.” And I talked about the power of persistent envisioning.

Melissa next offered her thoughts on her experiences on Avalon, moving from urban to rural on the spiritual path. Everyone was fascinated by her being solo on Avalon and getting so incredibly much done there. She talked about the challenges of breaking into the closed country culture and finally being seen as belonging, and about defining and redefining success and failure.

Next up was Vince, a newcomer to the Homecoming experience. Vince has been studying with Steve and Lorena's TCLOOSG (The Chicago Law of One Study Group) for some time now, familiarizing himself with the Law of One. Vince had a great presentation to offer about his experiences with meditation and its use towards his understanding and amelioration of pain.

Then Scott offered readings from www.wingmakers.com and led us in a visualizing exercise, exploring the qualities of divine love. I never could draw a lick, but I enjoyed the sharp pencil and the exercise of the visualization. Mick and I were drawing two different visualizations, but oddly enough, our drawings were very similar.

Aaron presented a segment on witnessing, isolation and the challenges of living in an environment of mental imbalance. She talked about her garden, where she lives in public housing, and how she spent all summer planting and tending pretty flowers for all the 200 inhabitants of this housing unit to enjoy, when a gang of goons tore up her flowers and planted some tomatoes instead. They did not share these tomatoes. Even a planting plot can become political and go from service-to-others to service-to-self!

Steve M then presented a segment on the topic, “Does the Law of Confusion or Free Will Give Rise to Science?” We wandered through his landscape of new physics and mathematics, mesmerized by the boldness of his theory. He is aiming towards the writing of a book on this subject eventually.

Jeremy W gave us a challenging segment on the political implications of the Law of One. There was a spirited debate, which was just what Jeremy had hoped for, as he has been working with these ideas, with no one to bounce them off of, for a long time.

Lastly for the day, Lorena passed out a booklet containing the correspondences between two prisoners and her, and discussed the L/L Research newsletter for prisoners, The LOOP (Law Of One for Prisoners). Lorena produces this newsletter as part of her prison ministry for L/L Research. It was most inspiring.

We ended our day together by enjoying a lovely meal at The Bristol. We offered the Gaia Meditation on the way home from the restaurant, and I gave the closing prayer. Then Mick and I enjoyed a late shower and a date, exchanging much loving energy.

We will hear the last seven presentations tomorrow.

2008-08-29

The first portion of my day was rest. It was prescribed by Dr. Mick, and I was glad to obey him. Other than writing Bob R to assure him that I’d be giving his presentation for him tomorrow on “Encouraging the Ground Crew” to live fourth density lives and dropping a note to Jude to assure her that all was still on track on A/Q, I toiled not, neither did I spin. I read most of a book by Catherine Coulter called The Maze - an excellent FBI mystery-romance - and had two glorious naps. The next couple of days will be long ones for me and this front-loaded rest will help me to enjoy them.

The rest of the people in the house were far busier than I! Jeremy and Gary set up chairs inside our tent, rearranged the living room to hold more chairs and moved a fat blow-up mattress into my upstairs office after removing my office mama chair to the Homecoming tent circle. Then Gary re-established my connections at the desk so I could keep my journals. Mel, who will be sleeping in my office for two nights, kindly encouraged me to come on in and write my journals early in the mornings.

Mick put in his usual Friday of mowing and gardening - and now, watering - and then did equipment maintenance and errands.

We gathered for our first time at 6:30. As the pretty, sultry day wound down to sunset, we received our Homecoming booklets and Gary talked us through how everything would go during this Gathering. Then we broke for the Welcome Feast. Everyone seemed to love the food, thank heavens.

Our evening circle was devoted to a round-robin talk around the circle, with each attendee introducing him or herself. It went late, as everyone this year is glad to share, and at its end, we had the Gaia Meditation together before we broke up into groups, those who go to sleep early and those who want to continue conversations. Mick offered the closing prayer.

We have had no less than 10 cancellations, so it is a smaller group this year. However, it is still a few too many attendees to fit in our living room, so I’m glad we got the tent. Jim’s tent garden was just beautiful to look at, with a huge chrysanthemum as the centerpiece which wintered over last year and has turned into a bush, and pretty coral bells around it.

It’s such a good group! I look forward to everyone’s presentations.

2008-08-28

After Morning Offering, Mick set out on his rounds of lawns to mow and gardens to tend. The highlight of his day was completing a large garden bed which he had begun the other day for a customer whose bed had been destroyed by the plumbers who dug the trench for the connection of her home’s plumbing system to the new sewers. He promised to take me by so I could see the finished garden. He is tickled at how it came out.

He also found the time somewhere to plant some Montauk daisies around the huge twin sycamore in our back garden. Our lilies are spent now, and there was no bloom there. Now the area is all shined up. As to the ajuga, he ran out of time to transplant that, but he did get the ground all prepared and tilled, ready for whenever he does get to that.

As for me I knew the day would be hard on me, but it needed doing, and I was weary at the end of it but thrilled that what needed doing was done. I got the drawers and cabinets in the kitchen labeled for our attendees and I sorted the spice and herb lazy-susans so that the needed condiments could easily be found. Then Aaron T and I worked on the rum cake for Friday night’s welcome feast and the brownies for thereafter. I got the ingredients together so that Aaron could put together the layered dip for snacks on Saturday night before finally conking out completely late in the afternoon and coming upstairs for a rest before bath time. We have only the fruit salad to cut up tomorrow morning and all our cooking is done!

After our bath, Mick and I had a lovely date, slept a bit in the afterglow and then came down to welcome the gathering clan.

Jeremy W arrived early in the afternoon. He and Gary stopped at Sam’s Club and Wal-Mart to finish shopping for the Homecoming and came home with tons of beverages and other bulk supplies. Then they tackled the recipes for the feast – chicken curry with Thai rice, asparagus mimosa and cauliflower with mustard sauce. They finished up in time for us all to watch the Colbert Report and then the Democratic Convention coverage on PBS, for which Romi joined us. Mick said that Obama made a wonderful acceptance speech. I missed it, having succumbed to sleep. I felt like a little child who has worn herself out on the swings! Sleep was utterly irresistible and delicious!

Romi offered the closing prayer at the Gaia Meditation.

Lorena L-O washed the French windows across the back of the house in the morning and she and husband Mike O played with their 13-month-old daughter, Reiko and napped with her, alternatively in the afternoon, as childish laughter rang through the house and good vibes abounded. The clan is definitely gathering! We officially begin our Homecoming 2008 tomorrow evening.

Our tent is up in the back yard now. The two-man team took a couple of hours to raise it. Jim’s garden in the center looks splendid. We’re ready!

2008-08-27

After Morning Offering Mick went out into the dusty, humid day and accomplished all his mowing, gardening and landscaping for the day, then came home and manicured our lawn, er, meadow for Homecoming, trimming up around all the plantings and polishing up the place. Camelot has never looked lovelier for this time of year! He says he may do a bit of transplanting tomorrow, as the ajuga in the Wuthering Heights nooks is sparse, and we have plenty of ajuga growing next to the pet cemetery. But basically, he’s finished! And Camelot is ready to welcome the open tent where we will make our Homecoming circle.

I had a spectacular morning, doing the last quote search I HAD to do, Bob R’s, since I will present for him. I had some time left and decided to see if I could do two more searches to round out absolutely all of our proposed segments. I collected quotes for Lorena L’s talk on our L/L Research prison newsletter, The Loop, and for Gene Trout’s presentation on seeking. Eugene cannot be here as he is in hospital with a heart problem, and we are praying for both him and Bob R. Gene is definitely here in spirit, so it is good to include his segment's presentation outline and quotes collection.

Gary was tickled to get everything from me in good time and spent some late business hours putting all the quote collections, together with segment outlines when those had been submitted, into one document, to be printed out, three-hole-punched and inserted into our Homecoming binders along with our curriculum and schedule pages and a map of the surrounding area by the volunteers who are coming early.

Joyous Chee wrote to ask about an article for the next issue of his e-zine, The Cosmic Lighthouse, and I sent him some candidates. The UPI web site does not have my archive of articles any longer, but they will be restored when I go through the process of creating my blog with them. During the time I have taken a hiatus from writing the articles, UPI switched from a zine format to a blog format and they did not switch my archive over. I hope he likes one of the articles I sent him!

I enjoyed having my monthly massage and manicure/pedicure at Absolutely Salon in the afternoon. After a quick bath, Mick and I attended the choir party. The potato skins Mel and I made were a huge hit! We took home only four out of a double recipe! And the rum cake was almost demolished as well. It was a fine party with such sweet people and such good energy that I was in alt. Mick and I agreed afterwards that it’s the most loving and fun group we’ve ever seen, outside of L/L Research Gatherings of course!

Choir practice ensued, and we practiced Carol Barnett's The Bluegrass Mass for the first time. It’s lots of fun! However it is hard music to read, so I am glad we have the fall to practice it.

I rejoined Gary and Mick for the Gaia Meditation, at which Gary offered the closing prayer. After Mick and I had gone to bed, Gary went to the airport to collect Aaron T, who has come early in order to help out with preparations. We also heard from Lorena that she and her husband and child were on their way and would arrive in the wee smalls of tomorrow morning. And Jeremy is due soon also to lend us a hand in getting ready. So L/L Research's Homecoming 2008 is ramping up!

2008-08-26

After Morning Offering Mick set out upon his day’s schedule of mowing and gardening while I came upstairs and worked on quotes pages for Allen F and Tom C. I was thrilled to get them done, as I knew my afternoon was going to be crowded and I thought, only one more search to do today and I am on track.

Melissa spent her morning greatly to our benefit! She treated our lawn for chiggers again. That second treatment should mean that our lawn is now fairly safe for our attendees as we sit under our open tent in our Homecoming circle. Kudos, Mel!

When Gary told me at lunch that Allen and Tom had both called in to say that they were not going to be coming after all, I was crestfallen to say the least. How could it be! I could have howled! My morning's work was entirely wasted!

In the afternoon Melissa and I worked together on the food I promised to bring to the choir supper tomorrow night – potato skins and a rum cake. We left the skins unbaked so that we can bake them up nice and toasty right before the choir supper and have them be fresh. They look so good! So does the cake! We finished around 5 p.m., after which Mick and I bathed.

I explained my predicament to my beloved mate and we arranged for me to have two evening work periods tonight, one from 7:00 to 8:00 and one from 9:00 to whenever. This worked very well, and I collected quotes for Steve T and Jeremy W, finishing around 10:30 p.m. I must admit that the long day gave me an unaccustomed headache, but that was a tiny price to pay for the feeling of relief I felt when I managed to cut my work-to-do from four quote collections to two!

Then Gary, who was manning the L/L Research Inbox late today, came up to tell me that we had another cancellation, for a very sad reason – Gene T is in ICU! His wife called to cancel. What amazingly tough luck for him! I asked Gary to let him know that our prayers are with him, as they are with Bob R, who is similarly unable to be here because of health problems. Since Gene and Bob were the two people whose quote collections I still had to do, it would seem that suddenly I was finished with the quote collecting work.

Bob, however, did write Gary and ask him to request of me that I give his presentation for him. So the situation resolved itself. I have exactly one quote search left to do tomorrow, Bob’s. And I will be happy to offer his presentation, which is on the subject of moving into cooperation with the new paradigm of love and unity as fourth density rolls in.

I am so relieved, because I can do that one search tomorrow morning! And then I will be free to enjoy my afternoon of spiffing up my nails and getting a massage and then going right into the bath and the evening’s choir party. Whee!

Now that the concern that I will be able to finish this work is allayed, I can look with immense satisfaction over the fascinating bunch of topics which will be offered at this Homecoming. I really feel that the energy of all the attendees being involved in offering some of their concerns and the gifts of their processes will make this the best Homecoming ever. I can feel the intensity building.

I joined Jim and Gary for the Gaia Meditation, at which Mick gave the closing prayer.

2008-08-25

The summery weather continued in humidity and drought as Mick sailed through another day of mowing and gardening, my doughty knight of the mower so bold and true! He managed to conclude his work for his customers at 3:00 p.m. and spent the rest of the afternoon right here at Camelot, finishing his yard-wide weeding and continuing to water and spiff up the plantings.

You can easily know my day, as it was in only three parts – Gerri G’s quotes, Steve M’s quotes and Melissa B’s quotes. Gerri had written in to Gary asking about quotes concerning Jesus of Nazareth in our material, So working to support her was fairly straightforward and I found good quotes of my Beloved, Jehoshua, for her.

Steve M was a lot harder as his proposed subject is outside of my competence, having a base in physics. However his thesis is that free will has given rise to science. And we have many quotes concerning free will! So his quotes are all on that topic. I can't wait to hear his talk!

Mel’s was hardest of all, since her topic has to do with the spiritual journey from city to country and few questions have ever been asked about that in our sessions. So I researched biodynamic farming and found some good discussions of living a life unified with nature there. She has been our caretaker on Avalon for well over a year now, and I look forward greatly to her talk as well.

I barely finished before bath time, so I am on schedule but MUST finish the other six quote searches in the next two days. And I have appointments both days – tomorrow I cook with Mel for the choir party. Wednesday I am booked from 2:00 p.m. onwards with a massage and pedicure/manicure and then the choir party. Uh oh! We’ll see how I do! I can always have evening work periods if needed.

I got the good news from Steve M that he will do a readthrough of 101 right now, this very minute! He explained that he was hung up on doing the session summaries for A/Q because there were points he did not grasp. He said he has no such trouble with my book and to send it on, and it was a joy to send him the manuscript on the instant.

Ian, our archive site web guy, was tickled to find that Steve E, our activist site web guy, was bringing www.bring4th.org to launch very soon. He’d like to talk with Gary and me about what to transfer from the archive site to B4, and I suggested we have that conversation by telephone after Homecoming. Homecoming is like the juggernaut that cannot be stopped! Its momentum is already accelerating and it will sweep us up until Labor Day has come and gone. It’s an exciting ride.

Mick and I had a delightful and energizing date before coming down to dinner and the Gaia Meditation. We enjoyed watching Jon Stewart and Steve Colbert with Gary over dinner, and I offered the closing prayer at the Gaia Meditation tonight.

2008-08-24

Our Sabbath went at a peaceful pace on this very hot and sultry day. I used the fan I’d received at church liberally! The fan advertises Menopause, the Musical, which a local theater group is staging. What a clever way to publicize that particular play!

It was back to school day at church, with the blessing of the backpacks, prayers for the teachers and students and three pieces sung by the Angel Choir, St. Luke’s version of what in my youth was called Junior Choir. An inspiring speaker, Becky K, who now heads the Sunday School, offered the sermon, urging all of those in the congregation of all ages to come back to school on Sunday mornings and explore the infinite possibilities of learning and seeking ever further. I enjoyed the energy of the service very much.

Mick picked me up after the service and brought me back to a sweet, clean dwelling. Over lunch we enjoyed a wonderful delightful, gotta-see film, Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day. Frances McDormand, whom I so thoroughly enjoyed in Fargo, plays the title role with a slightly out-of-focus charm that is enormously captivating. Amy Adams ably plays her foil, a daffy singer fair of face and uncertain of morals. The plot is slight but the script is smart and stylish, the costumes are gorgeous and the production values soar. And it is funny! Mick and I laughed and laughed again, surprised often by the lovely wit of the piece.

I especially appreciated the music, which consisted of one lush production after another of the fine old songs like “Ain’t Misbehavin’” and “If I Didn’t Care” that bring one back to a much finer day for popular music.

Over popcorn we went on to Street Kings, with Forest Whitaker as the beautifully played villain and Keanu Reeves as an equally formidably played anti-hero. It’s a police drama and the intricate plot unfolds to show massive corruption in the LAPD. A similar plot unfolded in real life in Los Angeles some years ago, and the story rang all too true. Hugh Laurie offers a finely tuned supporting performance. His character rings down a surprise ending that is quite satisfying. This is not an easy film to watch because of the casual and unremitting violence, but I’d recommend it to anyone who likes action and a good mystery.

I received a request from Gary and Steve E, the B4 web guy, for some text for the B4 site, a Welcome Message for the Home Page and a biography of L/L Research. I’d suggested to Gary that he use my Laughlin speech from last February for the bio, and he edited it down well. However, it needed many more words from me concerning the period from 1980 to 84, and a bit of fill-in for the present-day period. I sent the Welcome Message and the tweaked L/L bio to his Inbox before supper.

I sent an e-mail to Steve M asking him to consider whether he still wishes to do a readthrough of 101. It is time to finalize this book and get it to the printer. He is coming to Homecoming, so we can discuss it then.

Tom C wrote to suggest that we plant our loofah gourd with an air plant. They need no water. The species of bromeliad named ‘tallendsia’ seems ideally suited to our needs, according to a couple of web sites’ information which he forwarded to Lorena and me. I wrote to thank him. It is his home-grown gourd which Melissa and I are trying to make into a planter

We have had the bad news that Bob R’s back pain may be even more serious than was previously thought. He will have a biopsy soon. Unfortunately, this may conflict with his coming to Homecoming, which is too bad! It is our loss, if indeed it happens that way. Bob’s sweet smile enhances any gathering.

Morris H, L/L Research’s vice president, wrote inquiring about printing costs for 101 and offering to chip in for that purpose. We thank you, dear Morris! I asked Gary to investigate the costs of printing this book after Homecoming.

Lana L-B, a fan of the LOO since the eighties and a dear pen-pal friend, has just moved into her new home, and she sent me a gazillion photos of it. What a great home! She has made everything sing with beauty and order.

And my brother, Jim Rueckert, wrote to correct his announcement of his son, William’s birth. The weight was not 8 pounds, 6 ounces; it was 6 pounds, 8 ounces. I wrote to tell him that the news made me feel better for Kai, his wife and Wills' Mom! Giving birth to a 6-pounder when you are a teensy woman is bad enough – 8 pounds is way too much!

Mick spent his break time very productively, planting flowers in the pots by the side-yard fishpond and elsewhere in the yard and continuing to weed and water in preparation for Homecoming. He, Gary and I gathered for supper and the final ceremonies of the Olympic Games, which were dazzling. Mick offered the closing prayer at the Gaia Meditation.

2008-08-23

Saturdays are always a pleasure, with our fast-food lunch tradition and the after-lunch nap anchoring a relaxed day. We also get up an hour later, which gives us a shorter work-day too. After an abbreviated Morning Offering Mick cleaned the kitchen and did a round of errands. In the afternoon he weeded in the yard and then worked on our driveway, seating the stones on the front-yard side of the drive where he had to dig them into the hillock made by the sewer connectors and left by us as it is, since it's a good little dam in case of hard rains. He also widened the drive on the side-yard side, then re-seated the stones there.

Gary put in a full work-day at the L/L Research helm, quitting at 8 p.m.

I worked at finding quotes to support Nathan L all morning and Leonard G. all afternoon. Both men had topics that were challenging to support with quotes, so I had a thoughtful and creative day of it. However I still have nine collections of quotes to make and three days to do them, so I had better do three collections per day on next Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday!

I also rounded up one last recipe for the Homecoming menu, Asparagus Mimosa. It turned out that Gary had the Homecoming version of the recipe already, but I had neglected to change the last line, so the recipe said it fed 12. That fooled him, despite its ingredients list calling for "16 pounds of young asparagus". That was the easiest job I had today, changing ‘12’ to ‘24’.

I pass on to you what I looked up today: it is called "Mimosa" not because it has the pretty Asian flowers in it but because the egg yolks in the topping make the sauce golden, the color of that bloom.

Gary offered the closing prayer at the Gaia Meditation tonight.

2008-08-22

We’re having a heat wave! Unfortunately, it is a dry one. All the moisture is in the air. We're watering and watering! Mick and Gary set out after Morning Offering to get their Friday customers mowed and came home triumphant around 2 p.m. Then Mick worked for the customer who is redoing her flower beds after the sewer connection plowed right through her gardens.

Gary spent his afternoon cooking up next week’s food for the house – turkey, curried carrots and a rice dish.

I spent my working day developing quotes pages for three more of our Homecoming attendees. Now I have eleven topics to go.

Micheline, the French woman who is on the last few sessions of The Law of One, translating them into French, wrote to ask what she should translate next! What a delightful question! I suggested that she translate Q’uo channelings, starting with the latest ones and working backwards, then picking up new sessions as they are added to the site this fall. Once 101 is finalized, I suggested that it would be good for her to translate that volume.

I felt quite under the weather all day, but was greatly revived by a delicious energy exchange with Mick after our bath. How he works so hard in this kind of heat and then has the energy to ask for a date is a miracle to ponder, but I am thrilled about it! We enjoyed the Olympics with Gary until time for the Gaia Meditation. I offered the closing prayer.

2008-08-21

As the heat wave continued, after Morning Offering Mick sallied forth and did his day’s work, coming home to change his trousers four times and using up a dozen tee shirts as he worked in the incredibly high humidity.

In the afternoon when he had finished mowing today’s customers, he recreated one customer’s entire, sizeable flower garden which the sewer connection people had plowed right through recently. It was tricky because it had not been weeded this year, so he had to take 2 large garbage and lawn bags of weeds from the ruins of the previous garden before he could till and level the ground and transplant the many lovely flowers and bushes from where he had dug them up to the newly defined planting bed. It came out beautifully! He told his customer, “Water that flower bed!”

In the main, I worked on quotes pages for our Homecoming packet. I have 19 groups of quotes to gather in the next week. Today I did groups 2, 3 and 4. So I have 15 to go. I will just have enough time to do them all! Whew! They are fun to do, calling forth my creative side as I try to move into the head of each presenter and visualize what quotes will support him.

Around the edges I did a bit of e-mail. My brother, Jim, sent photos of his wife, Kai, and their brand new 8-pound infant son, William Rueckert, and I sent him a congratulatory note. I sent them a blanket for William last week – just in time! Since my bro is 60, I look for him to take a very late retirement! But his 30-year-old wife and he are over the moon with joy. It looks as though William has Asian eyes from his Mom. I hope he gets the rest of her looks as well, as she is a stunning Thai beauty. The Rueckert genes are not bad looking, but they come with bad eyesight, so we’ll hope Wills takes after Mom all the way!

Lorena wrote back saying that she, too had been unable to solve the riddle of how to hang the loofah-gourd planter so that when you water it, it won't drip all over the floor. She has hers outside where that’s not a problem – but how to bring it indoors for winter? She wrote Tom C, who gave us the gourds, to ask for his wisdom. We both await it with bated breath!

Our archive site web guy and I talked a bit further concerning the “origins” material format. He and I both agree that we want to make it easy for people to download our material, whether or not they donate. So he will probably go to PDFs for the new material. We both feel that those people who like books will not be satisfied with a print-out. They will continue to buy our books. Time will tell!

Gary has recently separated in the most amicable way from his long-time girl friend, and in the afternoon he brought his exercise machine back home and installed it in our upstairs guest room, now the Upstairs Guest Room and Spa! He will have to wait until next week, however, when lots of strong backs are here for Homecoming, to retrieve his Tempur-pedic bed, which weighs a young ton. “Breaking up is so very, very hard to do,” run the lyrics of a song popular when I was a girl. How true, especially when heavy equipment is involved!

I offered the closing prayer at the Gaia Meditation tonight.

2008-08-20

As the weather ramped up into the 90s F, we shared Morning Offering. Jim then set out on his mowing and gardening rounds and came home at bath time exclaiming at the dust his mowers kicked up. We need rain very badly! I’m doing a rain dance in my head. Hey-ya ha! Hey-ya rain!

I began my work day by writing my Journals. I had overslept so badly that Mick had to wake me up at 7:30. I suppose I was making up for a sleepless night earlier in the week. Usually I finish my journals before I wake up Mick at 7:15. I've always been a naturally early riser. But not this morning!

Then I did a bit of further work on the Homecoming menu, making some suggestions for the bread we offer at our Friday supper welcome feast. I’d like to get away from serving biscuits, which we have done before, as they involve adding butter and jelly and as each person uses the condiments, the line clogs up. I suggested three different recipes for garlic bread.

In the afternoon I edited the interview I had given Rosemary G of FATE Magazine and sent that back to her with the changes tracked.

I also wrote Lorena, asking her about the gourd planter she suggested as a good use for Tom C’s loofah gourd. Mel and I cannot figure out how to keep the planter from leaking when it is watered.

My working day was concluded as I got a handle on the quotes pages I need to do for Homecoming. I got organized and then I did the quotes for the first one of the eighteen topics we’ll discuss around the Homecoming circle, meditation.

Which reminds me, Gary rented padded chairs this year! Moving on up for our backsides!

After our bath, Mick, Gary and I gathered around our telephones and joined the teleconference Board meeting. Our concerns for this meeting were the shortfall on donations and the publicizing of 101 in order that we may sell it more effectively. We discussed several ways and means and I have a legal pad page full of things to do to follow up on that once we clear Homecoming. In the meantime I shall write Steve M to discover if he still wants to do that read-through of 101 about which he has talked. We need to publish that book sometime in October. Bill H offered a handsome donation which will tide us over until we have our annual fundraising campaign. Thank you Bill!

We spent the remainder of the evening watching the Olympic Games, conversing and reading. Mick offered the closing prayer at the Gaia Meditation tonight.

2008-08-19

As the temperatures and humidity crept up to serious summer weather, Mick set out after Morning Offering to mow and garden and water, water, water. We are in drought now. I worked on the recipes for Homecoming, creating special versions of them to feed two dozen instead of twelve. At 10:30, Dianne S and I went to have our hair cut at Images Salon. This was Dianne’s first time with Jazz, the very jazzy lady who cuts my hair and makes me look my best. She fell in love with Jazz and with the way Jazz cut her hair so that it would take no trouble at all for her to look good in daily life.

Dianne has curly hair, and has always been at pains to contain its natural exuberance. Jazz cut her hair so that it will curl naturally and look perfect with just a wash, a conditioning rinse and a squeeze of frizz-control cream rubbed in to the wet hair. Comb and go! It dries on its own and develops its own crown of curls.

I was so tickled that the experiment worked out well! Now Dianne and I can have our hair cut together every six weeks and spend our girlfriend time together without having to make special arrangements every time. Since we have been getting together every month or two for years, this arrangement is perfect for us.

I took some time in the afternoon to respond to our archive web guy’s request for which way to format a new document in our “Origins” section, HTML or PDF. Two years ago I would not have known what those acronyms signified, so there’s progress! Since HTML is less trouble, I suggested HTML for now, and changing to PDFs when we are ready to publish a printed book of all the “origins” documents. Or, alternatively, he could do the PDFs now and get that work done ahead of printing time. His choice! I was a lot of help, eh?

Then I got back to work on the Homecoming recipes. By bath time, I had finalized the rough draft of our choices, and sent that to Gary and Melissa, my partners in creating the menu. I still need some information from Gary on a cauliflower recipe for Homecoming’s Friday night welcome supper and from Mel on her sauce for our Fresh Fruit Salad, which we will offer at breakfast and as snacks all the time.

I had a wonderful time going through Steve E's new work on www.bring4th.org! Steve has developed the forums, chat,news, blog and several other sections of the web site, which previously has only had the on-line store fully functioning. It is a splendid job and I am thrilled! Steve hopes to have it all up and functioning by Homecoming! to view it in its rough-draft form, go to www.bring4th.org/index.php.

I have run out of time on Papa’s Journal reading and on my letter to him. So as bath time came, I finished writing my letter to him for now, promising to keep reading and taking notes in the evenings on his Journals, and to write him again when Mick and I are in Nebraska visiting Mom in early December.

Gary and I consulted at bath time, and he made some needed small changes in the curriculum for Homecoming, and created an agenda for our L/L Research Board Meeting tomorrow night which he will e-mail to everyone.

The paint was dry in my bedroom, so Mick and I were able to be back on my articulated bed. We greatly enjoyed the enchanting lovemaking we had delayed yesterday night due to our backs being uncomfortable on his flat bed downstairs.

Mel worked with the plant project of making a planting out of Tom C’s loofah gourd and some nasturtiums, but she got hung up on the question of how to water the finished planting without literally watering the floor beneath it, so I will write Lorena L, who gave me this creative idea, and ask her how she solved that problem with her own gourd-and-flowers hanging plant.

She also scrubbed a lot of Avalon dirt off of her beloved Saab and vacuumed a full bag of detritus from its insides. Poor Kemo Saaby has been Mel's farm truck for over a year! Now that we have Moonshine, the Ram which Bob R donated, the Saab can once again become a passenger car. She left early to reunite with her chickens and new kitty.

Gary offered the closing prayer at the Gaia Meditation.

2008-08-18

Pursuing the last item on my Great Office Clean-up list, after Morning Offering I finished making a scrapbook for our past year, August 2007 to July 2008. It came out well! And except for the facts that

1. The tomatoes for our hanging tomato plant have not sprouted
2. The gourd hanging is still in the process of being done
3. I have much of Papa’s Journals yet to read

I have finally demolished the list! Of course, the e-mail is way behind again, already. But it feels very good to know that my low-priority office work is virtually caught up, so I can clear my head for big projects in the fall. I’ll work on finishing Papa’s Journals in the evenings from now on.

After Mel and I had gone out at lunch for errands and to enjoy a first time at a new restaurant in Middletown, Pig City BBQ, we came back to hunker in from of my recipes database and choose recipes to augment the cooking Gary already plans to do for Homecoming 2008. After an hour or so of discussion and going off on different tangents, we settled on making:

• A rum cake for Friday night dessert and brownies for desserts thereafter.
• A huge bowl of fresh fruit salad for breakfasts over yogurt and granola and for snacks all day.
• Roasted garlic hummus Mexican layer dip and a cheddar cheese ball for late night snacks on Friday, Saturday and Sunday.

The rest of my work day was spent developing the actual recipes. Most all of our recipes are geared for 12 to 16 official servings, since that is about as much as we three eat in a week. They all need to be doubled for Homecoming. I got about halfway through the recipe adjustments before bath time.

Meanwhile Mel spent her morning painting the “desk” and “window seat” in my room – the quote marks are to indicate that I don’t use these items as a desk and window seat at all, but rather as a bedside table and a receiving counter for things brought upstairs – a lovely, clean white. In the afternoon she worked outside, treating the lawn for chiggers and putting a final coat on the gardening room door. The Homecoming attendees will be so grateful! Chigger bites generate a lot of discomfort with their amazingly persistent and sharp itching.

Gary had his Cracker Barrel server day today, while Mick accomplished a complicated day of mowing, gardening and chores for various customers. Then he went to Jefferson County Stone and brought back and spread another two tons of dense-grade gravel at the mouth and garage ends of our driveway. That project is now completed except for laying some stones on one side of the driveway.

Mick and I started to have a date after our bath, but old age got us. We could not meet in my room, since oil-based paint reeks. And in Mick’s room, propped up with many pillows, we both got cramps in the same place at the same time, fetched up groaning, and decided to reschedule our romance for a better venue and time! We had to laugh at ourselves! "C'est la vie, say the old folks - it goes to show you never can tell!"

Gary and Mel joined us for supper and an evening of watching the Olympic Games on television. It was Mel’s first visual look at the Games. In the cabin on Avalon she does not have a TV. She can get TV audio on her radio, so she has been listening to the diving, swimming and footraces. But it is hard to build good images of what is really happening from hearing the splashes and so forth during the contests!

Mick offered the closing prayer at the Gaia Meditation tonight.

2008-08-17

It was a lovely Sabbath day. After our usual split morning, Mick cleaning house and I singing the service at St. Luke’s, we rendezvoused for lunch and a movie. We thoroughly enjoyed Bernard and Doris, a fictionalized true story concerning Doris Duke, an heiress, and Bernard Lafferty, who had buttled for Peggy Lee and Elizabeth Taylor before coming to be Miss Duke's butler. The film was a bonanza of gorgeous production values. The costumes were wonderful, the cinematography was lush and the sound track was a grand visit with the great crooners and jazz singers of the forties and fifties.

I cannot say enough good about the performances of Ralph Fiennes, who played Bernard with infinite delicacy, and Susan Sarandon, who played Doris in a virtuso turn. Doris had never been loved for herself but always for her money. When she asked Bernard what he wanted from her, he said that he wanted to take care of her. This fragile yet sturdy relationship between the two was developed well by the good screenplay and both stars absolutely tore their parts asunder. It was delicious!

There was one moment right at the film’s end, as Doris lies on her deathbed, when Sarandon’s character simply looks at Bernard for a long, long take, perhaps thirty seconds. The intensity and complexity of that gaze, and Bernard's returning gaze, was a piece of screen acting you will not see often. It was all done with the eyes alone. and the eyes spoke eloquently indeed.

We took a nap together before embarking on our second film, Into the Wild, starring Emile Hirsch as the young college graduate, real-life Christopher McCandless, who decides to see the country and lose his childhood’s unhappiness instead of going directly on to graduate school. This film is also based on a true story. The screenplay and the direction credits go to Sean Penn. It was a luminous film, although a long one, almost two and a half hours in running time. However, the pace never lagged.

The ensemble around Hirsch offered a strong backdrop for the young man’s search for values. William Hurt as his Dad and Marcia Gay Harden as his Mom were especially excellent. The sound track shone as Eddie Vedder offered songs written for the film. I can see why this film has garnered so many awards and “best 10 movies of 2007” lists!

I came upstairs for a stint at reworking recipes while Mick puttered around with outdoor chores, watering and weeding, before we gathered again for supper. He is grooming our gardens to peak at Homecoming and every step he takes makes things fresher and more beautiful.

As for the recipes database, it is coming along! Having finished the beverage recipes, I waded in to the large bread section and spent my time today organizing the recipes for quick breads, topped breads, corn breads and bread machine breads. Now the section is easy to use. Next comes reworking the recipes themselves.

Gary joined us for supper and offered the closing prayer at the Gaia Meditation.

2008-08-16

After Morning Offering I worked on my scrapbook, only to find, after I had done four pages, that I was working from the back of a scrapbook dedicated strictly to MacDuffie matters. My whole morning had been devoted to a big mistake. However, since the rest of the MacDuffie scrapbook pages will be my update letters, it’s OK. I removed the sheets on which I’d carefully placed my mementos and will tape them, whole, into the new scrapbook, which Mick got me when he went out for errands late this afternoon.

So I spent the rest of my working day reading Papa’s Journals. I learned from him today that chimpanzees are divided into the common chimp, whose habitat is north of the Congo River and whose society is aggressive and confrontational, and the bonobo or gracile chimpanzee, whose habitat is south of the Congo River and whose society is matriarchal and given to displays of sexual play when in tense situations. Make love, not war! Papa suggests that STO types source the DNA of the bonobo, while STS folks choose the common chimp DNA. Both genomes are 98% the same as humans’.

I am a bonobo-sourced human, definitely!

Mick’s day was full of good deeds, from cleaning the kitchen to restocking our front-yard fish pond, which has lately been depleted by a blue heron, to seeing to the depositing of gravel on our driveway. Mick makes everything better!

We were treated to a delicious dinner after our bath by Romi, safely home at last from Czeska. He took us to Limestone Restaurant. We conversed the night away, enjoying having Romi home and also enjoying a handsome dinner. I had two of my favorite dishes, steak and lobster bisque. Yum!

Gary was at the L/L Research helm today and gave me hard copies of all the Homecoming attendees’ presentation papers so that, come Monday, I can begin accumulating some good quotes from our channeling archives for our packet.

2008-08-15

My time for the Great Office Clean-Up is dwindling, and so after Morning Offering I switched from working with Papa’s Journals to catching up my scrapbook. It has been a couple of years since I preserved those mementos that are so dear to my ever-teenage heart, a napkin here, a ticket stub there and occasionally a photo.

That’s a problem for me, the photos. Since we went digital, I have no idea how to access my many photos. They are in the computer, but I have never figured out how to use photo paper and print them out. I must conquer that one day!

I enjoyed myself thoroughly going through all the good memories of this and that occasion and after spending the morning sorting the bits and pieces, I spent the afternoon writing some copy to go with them in the scrapbook, explaining what each relict is. Tomorrow, I cut, shape, layer and assemble.

I got an e-mail from the folks at FATE Magazine, with the interview I gave them at the 2008 International UFO Congress attached for me to proof and edit, but I could not open the attachment. I sent it off to our web guy with a plea for reformatting the document to one which my computer can read.

Meanwhile Mick and Gary hit the neighborhood with their mighty mowers, Thetis, Fielder and Susie, and danced and whirled with the lawn and garden devas of Anchorage, coming home triumphantly early before 2 p.m.!

Gary spent the rest of his working day doing the cooking for next week, including a recipe I cobbled together to use up the farm produce: 1 butternut squash, 2 summer squash, lots of garlic and some cherry tomatoes. Add some store-bought green beans to tie the other vegetables together, and some good herbs to give some complexity to the finished taste and voila! We’ve used up our produce, and what could be better for us than food grown on Avalon?

Mick finished his day by tilling, leveling and raking a customer’s yard, repairing the long area where her sewer-to-house line had been put in recently. He had to port 4 cartfuls of dirt, and came home glad indeed that he had done 95% of the dirt hauling by renting a Dingo. Moving dirt a shovel-full at a time is very heavy work! He sowed 50 pounds of grass seed and then spread 3 bales of hay to finish the job! And he’ll be back watering every day until the grass takes hold, for this dry, cool weather from Canada is still with us and bodes no rain at all for several days to come at least.

After our bath, Mick and I had a lovely date, praising the Creator and charging our Planet Earth batteries with the energy exchange. We came downstairs to a late dinner and watched episodes of Stargate SG-1 and Atlantis. Gary joined us for the Gaia Meditation, at which he offered the closing prayer.

2008-08-14

As our spell of balmy, beautiful weather continued, after Morning offering Mick set out on his round of mowing and gardening while I came upstairs to spend the day reading Papa’s Journals and writing back to him as I read.

I spent the last hour of the day reading forwards from Rho M, Frank D and Elihu E, learning more about the society in which we live. I greatly value their contributions to my ever ongoing education. They read blogs and newsletters from alternative news sources to which I don’t subscribe, and the mass media never offer these facts and points of view.

I was especially moved by an article on women in the army. Over 90% of them report sexual harassment in two separate but equally informative studies using anonymity to get honesty. The army itself polls its women on this issue and their statistic is 20%. Why the difference? If a woman soldier reports being raped, she may well be reporting it to the person who raped her. And she will certainly become known as a snitch by the people with whom she works day in and day out. It is a no-win situation, since the army simply issues a reprimand to the rapist. So women who wish to be soldiers tough it out, with no recourse to any sort of justice. The belief is held by most soldiers that the reason women are allowed in the army is to provide sexual services to the male soldiers in the field. There is no official policy, but the way the army treats this issue suggests that it is tacitly understood.

We are justly concerned with the plight of women in the Middle East and Africa. But we should be much more concerned with the abuse of the women of our own country! You can read this article for yourself by going to http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/3848/.

Gary picked Romi up at the airport this afternoon as the Ro Man returns from Czeska. We’re so glad he’s back! We’ll get together to celebrate with him this Saturday.

Gary joined Mick and me for supper and the Colbert Report. Mick offered the closing prayer at the Gaia Meditation tonight. We finished our evening by watching more Olympic games.

2008-08-13

I had a very quiet and pleasant day of it, coming upstairs to read Papa’s Journals after Morning Offering and staying with it all day. Things he says always prompt me to write him in return, so I probably spent as much time writing him as reading his words. He has embarked on a history lesson for me, trying to explain the present moment and how we got here. Papa knows the whole sweep of history as well as the history of religions and the day flew by as I watched populations swirl across the globe, moved by natural conditions and war.

My one upset was literally an upset of my water glass, right over the surge strip into which all my computer gadgets are plugged. I had just switched to using a plastic tumbler instead of a glass one because I did not want to break a glass up here, and eventually, I generally do upset my drinks for lack of muscle control when picking up something heavy. And that’s just how it happened. My grip slipped on the very heavy Journal and kerplooey! It was soon toweled dry and all is well. and no glass was broken! I love it when a plan comes together.

Mick’s day was also pleasant but much more active. After he finished his mowing and gardening customers for the day he rented a dingo – a miniature bobcat with a 4’ scoop – and worked on a customer’s long mound of dirt which followed the path of her new sewer line from the road to her house. Three hours of work saw the job with the dingo done. Tomorrow he will go back and use the tiller to break up the tumbled soil so that he can rake it all smooth and plant grass.

I had another chat with Justin W, the webmaster at UPI’s Religion and Spirituality website. He is fixing me up with the codes and passwords I need in order to blog there with my Small Medium at Large column. People are so incredibly kind! I look forward to fall and getting back to writing for that column. There is so much to share!

I also wrote out the plan for Gary to use in collecting all of our addresses, both e-mail and snail-mail, for use in publicizing 101 when it is printed. Right now it is on pause until Steve M does his read-through.

And after talking it over with Mick, we have responded to the need for funds at L/L Research by making a donation which will cover a $2,000.00 bill from our accountants, who have had to redo L/L Research’s books completely this year, plus another $1,000.00 to seed the cost of printing 101. We will be asking our Board members for financial help to tide us over until the 2009 funds drive on the 20th, and it behooves us to put our money where our mouth is. It is such a blessing to have Don’s trust fund to call upon when L/L Research needs help. I know that’s where he would want the funds spent, as L/L Research was as much his life as it is Jim’s and mine.

We enjoyed an evening of Amy Goodwin’s Democracy Now, World Music, Olympic events and the antics of the Colbert Report. Mick offered the closing prayer at the Gaia Meditation tonight.

2008-08-12

Enjoying another cool day, after Morning Offering I worked on the journals which I had slept too late to finish before I woke Mick for the day. In addition to the Camelot Journal and the Holly Journal, I had an entry to make in the Avalon Journal, and it took me the better part of the morning.

At lunch, Gary passed on to me a letter from George K, saying that he had been diagnosed with cancer. He wrote asking me about how to use this catalyst, knowing that I have dealt with serious illness all my life. So I took some time to muse with him about the gifts that limitations bring in their hands.

I also wrote Tiffani M to congratulate her on her marriage, which took place on August 8th. She and Ryan are now off for a month of honeymooning and traveling. I hope that they have a wonderful time! Tiff is a Board member and brings both youth and business savvy to our group.

The rest of my day was spent with Papa, reading his Journals and commenting on them in a letter I have started to him.

Mick was bedeviled by a major breakdown with Fielder, his big mower, and had to make an unplanned trip to Louisville Tractor to get poor Fielder seen to. In spite of this, my hero finished all his customers’ lawns and gardens and still had time to do a bit of planting here at Camelot, tucking some chrysanthemums into the Ruins Garden and some dianthus into the top tier of Wuthering Heights.

We enjoyed a particularly good conversation with Gary over dinner and he offered the closing prayer at the Gaia Meditation tonight.

2008-08-11

What a perfect day for me to make the drive up to Avalon! The temperature topped out at 78 F! For the middle of August, this spell of comfortable weather is amazing and wonderful! After Morning Offering I went to the farm to spot Mel while she works with the tractor on the access road. The road is narrow and steep and she has a concern on this 100-foot stretch of steep, high-crowned road that the tractor could tip into the ravine. So I am her 911 call on the hoof.

This time I sat in the car and watched her in the flesh rather than going to the cabin and counting on the walkie-talkies which failed us last time, running out of battery power only an hour into the exercise. It was a much better plan.

After she finished another 40 feet of smoothing the high crown down to make a flat road bed, she was exhausted. We went down into the valley for an outhouse break and to check on the chicks and her new cat, Mr. J, and then we drove across the Ohio River at Madison, Indiana, and had lunch at Shipley’s, a fun and funky bar and grill.

Our planning meeting went until 4 p.m. and I had just time enough to get back to Louisville by bath time. It was an excellent adventure. Mel is slowly transforming the place, bringing it step by step from rough wilderness to comfortable country in feel. The road is now safe for regular cars and the cabin looks better and better as Mel paints and cleans and uses her carpentry skills to build in shelves and tables and whatever is needed to live conveniently.

Meanwhile Mick was able to mow all his customers’ lawns, do all their gardening and still get in his daily maintenance and plant lariope in the front bed that runs along the parking area in front of the house. Mick had had to take down the stones at the end of the bed where the sewer lines went through, and the previous lariope did not make it. These were replacements. The re-finished stones and plantings now look as though they’d been that way forever!

We heard that Isaac Hayes died today. What a loss! He seemed to be such a nice man, and his music was great, imprinting a whole generation of rappers with his style. Farewell, soul man! We send you on your way with prayers and angels.

Mick and I had a very romantic date after our bath, always a significant spiritual time and a beautiful and healing event in my life, thanks be to God.

I offered the closing prayer at the Gaia Meditation tonight.

2008-08-10

It was a lovely morning to go to church! I sang the service at St. Luke’s while Mick cleaned the house. Father Joe was away on vacation and I was in hopes that the visiting preacher would be less wordy than the good Father, but it was not to be. This fellow spent an inordinate amount of time explaining that God comforts us and that’s how we make it through everything. That is certainly true but he did not make me laugh with his stories, as Father Joe always does. All in all, I want Father Joe back!

We began our first film, Freedom Writers, starring Hillary Swank, with lunch. As soon as the titles finished rolling, I fell deeply asleep and when I awoke, the film was ending! So I cannot rate this film. However Mick said it was wonderful, heart-warming and based on a true story. It is a film that shows just how much difference one teacher can make in a young person’s life. People from Swank’s character’s real-life English class have often been the first in their family to go to college.

Our second film, Turn the River, was a slight but enjoyable film about a pool hustler, played with verve and against stereotype by Famke Janssen, who has lost custody of her son because of her rootless ways. Her son is unhappy and she determines to get enough money together to get her son out of town and across the border into Canada, so as to escape being brought into custody for the kidnapping. Rip Torn shines as a seedy pool hall owner with a heart of gold. The production values were good, but the ending left a lot to be desired.

During our break time, I heard from an old friend, Lee B, who called from California. Lee has been a friend since my college days, a gentle, kind and extremely thrifty man and a serious philosopher. Both his nature and his metaphysics tend towards the Buddhist, although he follows no doctrinal path. I am most fond of Lee and it was good to catch up with him.

I also delighted in writing Talitha, Rick and Bob R to thank them for their videos and photos, which I now have viewed! That to-do list is down to two items now, besides the two plant projects with which Mel is helping me – reading Papa’s Journals and catching up our scrapbook. I think I have just enough time to do those last two chores before August 15th, the deadline for Homecoming attendees to submit their topics for discussion/presentations. After that, I will put in my office hours collecting quotes for each person’s topic. It has been very comforting to me to get all these office details accomplished this summer!

Our third film, Blood Brothers, looked to be beautifully done during its first ten minutes, but Mick is allergic to subtitles, so we did not finish viewing it but rather turned to the Olympic Games on television.

They were showing swimming and women’s gymnastics tonight. It is stirring to watch the competition, and we cheered for Michael Phelps, Garrett Weber-Gale, Cullen Jones and Jason Lezak as they set a world record in the 4x100 men’s relays, finishing in 3:08.24. France was expected to win this event but had to settle for second place, with Australia coming in third. It was also nifty to see Phelps collect his second Gold Medal of the eight he hopes to win by the end of the Games.

Gary joined us for supper and the Gaia Meditation, at which Gary offered the closing prayer.

2008-08-09

The cool, dry weather continued, blessing us with an Edenic day. As the Rose of Sharon hedge across the front of Camelot bloomed and the surprise lilies, or naked ladies, as they are called around here, suddenly popped up out of the ground, Mick devoted his time after Morning Offering to taking all three cats to the vet. Chloe was an angel, cooperative and quiet, but Dan D. Lion turned into a spitfire. They are thriving! Pickwick, poor fellow, has somehow gotten ringworm. We now have a month’s worth of medicine for him. They got all their shots, bless them, and snoozed for the rest of the day.

In the afternoon, Mick worked in the yard, cutting our grass and trimming around the many plantings. He is working towards having the lawn peak at Homecoming. He mulched the very last of the plantings and looks forward to adding some pretty perennials to a couple of existing beds, the Wuthering Heights planting in the front yard and the Tent Garden where we will be gathering at Homecoming. It’s so nice to have the flowers blooming there in the middle of our circle.

I knocked out a couple of the remaining items in my rapidly dwindling to-do office clean-up list, watching a video of a stretching exercise routine that Talitha L had given me, thinking it might work for me, and viewing the photos that Bob R sent me. The stretching routine that Mick and I do is close to what the video offered, and actually contains a more complete set of stretches for the whole body, but it was good to see that a doctor’s advice as to how I should try to exercise conforms closely to our actual practice.

And it was fun to see Bob’s home in Toledo, a rambling three-story house with outbuildings and wabi-sabi gardens. And cars! Bob loves his cars! It was funny to see his close-up photo of his spotless Subaru’s engine! Now that’s a car lover! And it is a grand sports car!

He had also taken some pretty photos of our yard at last year’s Homecoming, and I’ll have to elicit Gary’s intelligence as to how to preserve those.

I heard from Romi that he will return from Czeska on Thursday next! His Mom, whom he has been nursing after her hip replacement surgery and subsequent stomach flu, has recovered. That is great news! We have not been apart this long since he was in the Peace Corps a few years ago, and I’ve missed our sweet-natured, ever earnest Ro Man. He wrote to invite Mick and me out to dinner to celebrate his return! I can’t wait!

I went back to my to-do list in the afternoon and spent the rest of my day reading in Papa’s Journals and starting a letter to him. It is such a blessing to get to this item. I have woefully neglected my studies with Papa for months, focusing instead on getting the two big writing projects finished. It’s good to be reading through his brash, testy, curmudgeonly, humorous and wise comments again.

Before bath time I had a short meeting with Gary to discuss aspects of Homecoming – a place for Mel to sleep while she is here – she’ll have my bower office with a mattress on the floor while my office Mama chair is outside under the tent - and possible candidates for Aaron T, Mel and I to cook to add to the basic cooking that Gary will do.

Gary likes to prepare a meal for our first night together at Gatherings, so we can settle in together as a group without having to go out to eat. It works well. On subsequent evenings, we go to a restaurant for our supper, and eat breakfast and lunch here. My goal is to flesh out the Homecoming menu with some snacks and desserts, and perhaps a big fruit salad and a spinach salad. Gary agreed to meet with Mick and me early next week and settle on some choices.

While Mick cleaned the kitchen in the evening Gary and I read, he on the porch and I in the living room. We gathered at 9:00 p.m. for the Gaia Meditation, at which Gary offered the closing prayer.

2008-08-08

We enjoyed heavenly weather today, breezy and cool, barely leaving the 70s F. And the humidity was way down as well. It is good to remember days like this in the midst of Kentucky’s usual sweltering summer weather! After Morning Offering Mick and Gary enjoyed the weather as they worked their way through the bumper crop of Friday mowing jobs.

I started my day by reading through the proposed rules for our forums on B4. They are patterned after the ones Jeremy W created for David W’s site, asc2k, and they seemed all right to me. Such rules always seem officious and fussy, but in times of difficulty on a forum it is good to have them structured into the site. I changed a couple of words to make them less extreme and OK’d them.

Bob R sent me the good news that his new site, http://www.thehomeplanetnetwork.com/index.html, is up. He only has the event page working so far, but his mind is full of marvelous plans! The event which he is advertising is a weekend with William Henry in Williamsburg, Virginia in October. We wish you well with that, Bob!

He also said that he will be able to attend Homecoming 2008 after all – and that he will bring his own chair this time! Bob has a bad back and it needs special care. I certainly sympathize with that!

I fiddled around with the UPI Religion and Spirituality site, trying to log on and see just how the users are set up to work with the site when they post to their blogs, but was unable to get anywhere. I sent a request for help to the head of their tech department. I intend to go back to writing articles in September and would like to know how to post them before then.

Mel and I went out to get white paint for my bedroom and to do my monthly labs at LabCorp at lunchtime and came back with burgers. She had spent the morning, among other things, sewing on the leatherette cover of my wheelchair’s shin pad, which had torn loose of its padding because of being closed incorrectly. In doing so she found that the length of the leg portion of the machine was wrong, and she got the leg supports lengthened and evened, which will make the chair much better for when I want to put my legs up in the chair.

We played for the rest of the afternoon with a hanging tomato plant kit, starting three Best Boy tomatoes from seeds. Supposedly you can grow these tomatoes indoors or outdoors and all year round. We’ll see. Anyway it was fun to get the kit opened and start the seeds.

Mick and I had a date after our bath and I slept for a while in the afterglow. He woke me to go downstairs and enjoy the opening ceremony at the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing. I know that China has many human rights issues, especially with regards to Nepal, and is holding on to Taiwan for dear life when those of that island want to be independent. But I also know that the oneness of the human tribe is a theme not to be destroyed because of politics.

I thought it was very interesting that in the ceremony, the stunning visual effects were created by people in great masses. China is very populous, and the organizers used thousands of people and incredibly intricate choreography to create vast patterns that swirled and flowed from one image to another. The individual dancers were more like pixels than independent agents. Their value lay strictly in performing their part in the gigantic overall pattern. The whole show was evocative to me of their political stance, communism, in which the workers are not independent agents but instead all work for the state.

The sheer size of the “bird’s nest” arena built for this event is amazing. I believe they said that the building is about a quarter-mile long! And the seats were packed! It was a sold-out crowd. Mick will be in heaven watching the track and field events this coming week. He was a pole vaulter and sprinter in high school and college.

I offered the closing prayer at the Gaia Meditation tonight.

2008-08-07

After Morning Offering Mick departed on his rounds of mowing and gardening. It had rained overnight and the temperature and humidity were both blessedly abated by the showers. This was the day for two of his largest-acreage mowing jobs and I only saw him again at bath time.

My morning was taken up by a very good telephone conversation with our web guy. We solved the protocol problem to our mutual satisfaction and then went on to chew over deeper matters, moving gradually from topics related to our work together to more abstract philosophical considerations – what is truth; what is knowledge; are there parallel universes. It was the perfect day for this leisurely conversation, as my Great Office Clean-Up can easily wait a day!

The conversation ended right at the time Mel and I had agreed to go on our round of errands. The day moved smoothly ahead through a lengthy search for new bathroom rugs for the upstairs and downstairs baths and a welcome mat for Sugar Shack, Mel's domain on Avalon. I finally chose simple, solid-color rugs for both baths, blue for the upstairs and lime green for the downstairs. I also came away from Kohl’s excellent sale with three new pairs of flip-flops in colors I lacked, pink, aqua and deep brown. Mel found a great welcome mat, a simple rooster design on a semi-circular mat with great traction.

We went paint-hunting for the touch-up project in my bedroom, but Mel was not satisfied with the prices and will look elsewhere tomorrow. And we stopped by Office Max for pens and post-it notes.

Mel and I chewed over the question of further repairs on Moonshine, Avalon’s newly donated farm truck. Altogether the fixes would cost $1300.00, which L/L Research simply doesn't have. Mel will look further into prioritizing the long list of needed repairs. Fortunately she can make do with the vehicle as it is. It just lacks flashers, a horn and has system-wide electrical problems, plus a leaking brake cylinder.

She suggested calling the truck in to a local radio station that specializes in swaps and trades among its listeners, offering to trade it even for a smaller truck with four-wheel drive. Moonshine is a large utility model, but it does not have the four-wheel drive that would make it handier on our steep access road.

Gary and I sat down with four more of the Homecoming attendees’ suggestions for their presentations and topics for discussion, all of which sound fascinating. He and I worked to make suggestions as to which of several topics to choose for the main focus for three of the four attendees. I am so happy about this! The Homecoming will just burst with all of this creative energy on the part of the people coming and sharing. And I will have about a week from now to wind up my office chores before settling in to create the q’uotes which will accompany our curriculum.

This summer is spending itself with delightful rhythm in my working life. After Homecoming, I shall be ready to take up more substantive projects, enjoying the mental peace of no office back-up! Only the e-mail’s constant build-up remains to challenge me! It is like housework in that it always needs doing!

I do try to do some each day. Today I finished out my work day by writing Terry H, a stalwart Law of One scholar who has accomplished translating all five books of TLOO into Chinese! He wrote to inquire concerning our need for funds, and I was glad to reply that we did indeed have a temporary shortage. He responded quite shortly with a handsome donation, and we thank you, Terry!

Several other generous souls have also chosen this time to donate, and I can see now that we will make it through to Homecoming, where we will generate more funds from the attendee fees. We’ll have a Board meeting on August 20th to discuss this shortage and also the question of just how to proceed with publishing my new 101 book. The annual fund drive won’t start up until October.

One of our Board members, Tiffani, will be married tomorrow. I can imagine that she could not resist the date! 8-8-08 is pretty special! I'm thinking about you, Tiff, and wishing you and Ryan the very best!

Gary joined us for Jon Stewart and The Colbert Report. Mick offered the prayer at the Gaia Meditation tonight.

2008-08-06

It had rained overnight, cleansing the air of a bit of the heavy-hanging humidity that is our lot in the southern summer's dog days. After Morning Offering Mick trundled out his mowers and set himself for the day’s work, returning only at bath time.

My morning was taken up with visitors, as Vara and her husband Sean arrived just after Mick left. We had a most pleasant conversation, catching up on all that had occurred since Vee left the climes of Kentucky for Georgia. The two are deeply and romantically in love and it was good to see Vara happy and contented. She will accompany Sean to Fairbanks, Alaska, where he will probably be deployed to Iraq with his unit. He is an army man, just recently having come through basic training.

His career goal is to go through the experience of serving a tour of duty in Iraq and then to finish his training – he graduated in psychology – and become a licensed psychologist. He feels that his field experience will make him a better counselor for army men dealing with post-traumatic stress disorder and other mental problems having to do with experiences in battle. I think it is an admirable intention. I just hope he survives Iraq!

I continued conversing with our web guy about a point of formatting on the Channeling Circle sessions but was unable to resolve the issue completely. We will talk on the telephone tomorrow.

I also spent a bit of time writing Lana L, who is starting to write a book on democracy and how we Americans need to mend ours. It is a very worthy project and she had intended to start it this week. No one could be better for this task that Lana, as she has had this intention for literally decades, but raising kids, dealing with relationships and a teaching career have always intervened. Now her slate is clearer, she is in a brand new home and it has a space for her to devote strictly to writing. The stage is set!

I watched two home videos from Rick and Dianne C, the author of The Maine Report which I so enjoy, and his wife. Maine in the winter, a red fox prowling their fields, Dianne blueberry picking and visits to Camden, Northport and Rockport Harbors were the subjects. I especially delighted in seeing the lobster men pull in their catch.

I received a surprise in the mail – Michelle T’s new book, The May Queen! She wrote saying that she had been thinking about me, and decided I needed a copy. It was so kind of her! And her book was already on my wish list, so I was doubly delighted. I sat down and wrote her a thank you note immediately.

I just cracked Papa’s Journal in the afternoon. It is 800 pages of reading, so I will be working on digesting it for a while! And I finished the work day by getting 51 letters out to my MacDuffie classmates. Gary had kindly duplicated the class update letter for me and labeled the envelopes. Mick helped me stuff them, stamp them and put return address labels on them, bless him!

My Great Office Clean-Up continues! I was unable to get the other two videos, one from Bob R and one from Talitha L, to play. They are probably just fine. I just don’t grok electronics.

I am rueful to say that I have never mastered even turning the TV on in the downstairs set-up. I am thick as a plank when it comes to this area of knowledge. I seem to have a mental block. This has been true all my life. Why an otherwise intelligent person would have these areas of utter lack of competence I do not know. It is inconvenient! Gary will be in the office tomorrow and I’ll get him to start me up with these after lunch.

As I move ahead, however clumsily, with these tasks, the list of chores to catch up is ever shorter. After I see these videos and read Papa’s Journal, I only have three items on the list: catching up our scrapbook, creating a loofah gourd flower hanging using Tom C's gourd and creating an indoor, year-round, hanging tomato plant from a kit. It’s great to see the list shrink. I will be able to start the fall with a clear slate in the office! What a good feeling.

Gary joined us for the Colbert Report and offered the prayer at the Gaia Meditation tonight.

2008-08-05

It was a much cooler day than had been predicted because of a couple of fairly substantial rainstorms which sprang up in the morning and drenched us with about an inch of rain. It was wonderful to see the rain, which we needed, and Mick managed to get his work done working around the rain delays. He was tickled to see the extra raindrops as it means a longer run of weekly mowing for JLS. When draught hits here, the grass stops growing and Mick loses revenue.

After Morning Offering I edited my MacDuffie Class of ’61 update and sent it down to Gary. He will generate the 51 copies of the 6-page letter plus a set of mailing labels. It is good to have this project done, and very satisfying to have caught up with these wonderful classmates of mine. I adored MacDuffie and am a fan of the school still. So it is a pleasure to be class captain.

You never know when some issue will pop up that blindsides you completely. Such was what to me is a minor issue but what to our web guy is a critical one: names or initials identifying the channeling circle channels in CC sessions. Our web guy feels that giving names to channels and initials to questioners is elitist. That never occurred to me. However I am going with his judgment, which in the past has been absolutely sound. I mention this because the issue took up a good bit of my working time yesterday, both in e-mail writing and in having a fairly protracted conversation with Gary on the subject.

That’s OK! I am glad to give the time to any issue which our web guy brings up. He has given L/L Research an amazing amount of time over many years, spanning upwards of two decades now. My heart overflows with thankfulness for his presence in our lives, and it goes out to him for having to deal with sometimes insensitive and thoughtless folk such as I.

I did a bit of personal e-mail as well, writing a letter to a friend considering divorce from a husband whose spiritual path is still undeveloped, while she has developed into a channel. I have seen this situation again and again through the years. It is always wrenchingly painful. I am sensitive to the altar promises made, and as always in this situation, my thoughts were upon just how she could spent time and space alone without dissolving the marriage bonds.

To slough off a chosen lifetime companion because of spiritually based differences seems to me to be a bad idea, generally speaking. One of the values of a lifetime companion is that you can work on your spiritual life by dealing with him/her lovingly, non-judgmentally and with the intent of retaining unity and harmony. It is certainly a challenge, but I think it is a spiritually useful maturation agent to do so.

Nevertheless, I am behind her whatever she does. A friend whose love is conditional is not a friend at all. Only she knows where the rubber hits the road in her relationship and her life.

Mick and I had a lovely, quiet evening. I offered the closing prayer at the Gaia Meditation.

2008-08-04

While the heat wave continued and the thermometer reading marched towards 100 F, Mick and his gallons of water and Fierce methodically knocked out his mowing and gardening jobs for today.

I spent my day working on the update for my high school class. It was heart-warming to go through each classmate’s letter and distil the news to pass on. I also wrote MacDuffie to ask the alumnae director, Karen K, what was shaking at the school. However I did not hear back. By bath time, except for whatever she may send me in the morning, the class of ’61 update was ready to edit and mail.

After our bath, Mick and I enjoyed a vivid, intense energy exchange, thank you Lord! Mick offered the closing prayer at the Gaia Meditation tonight.

2008-08-03

This was a day of slight respite from the heat wave, which was a blessing at church! I worshiped at St. Luke’s and sang a jazzy version of “Sing My Soul His Wondrous Love” while Mick did the housecleaning for the week.

Over lunch we home-screened our first of three films, What Love Is, starring Cuba Gooding, Jr., ably backed by an ensemble including Gina Gershon, Ann Heche, Sean Astin and Matthew Lillard. Lillard especially brought acutely rhythmic timing and excellent energy to his role, but the ensemble was excellent throughout. The real star of this film was Mars Callahan, who wrote and directed the piece. His dialogue was witty and the rapid-fire direction was reminiscent of the old “talkies” of the 1930s and ‘40s.

The plot was slight, a look at the relationships between men and women, men and men and women and women, all surrounding the night Gooding’s character invites some friends over to be with him when he proposes to his girl. However the play has three acts – men only, women only and the men and women together. The device works very well and entertains generously. I laughed myself silly several times.

We next sleepwalked through Sleepwalking, continuing to watch simply out of curiosity. We wanted to see if there might be any possible redeeming virtue of this film. It portrayed life as flat, banal, inane and amoral and the characters were the counterpoint to the Great Plains flatlands.

Our interest yielded no joy. There was no reason for this film to be made. It was Charlize Theron’s film and yet we saw very little of her. James Reedy played her brother, who must take care of Theron’s daughter, played by Anna Sophia Robb, when Theron’s character disappears. Woody Harrelson was unmemorable in support of Reedy’s character, while Dennis Hopper offered a stark portrayal of Theron’s and Reedy’s brutalizing father.

Our final home-screened film was Flawless, starring Demi Moore and Michael Caine. I enjoyed this film about the diamond industry and its politics and morals. While the plot was slight, it was well realized, with a tight screenplay and excellent star turns for Moore and Caine. I especially enjoyed a long scene which takes place in a sewer, with the cinematographer catching the light dancing over the effluent and illuminating the actors as Moore discovers the clever method Caine has used to bilk the diamond industry of a billion dollars worth of its gems. This was fun!

Over supper we found yet another film on the tube, Audrey Hepburn in Roman Holiday. An aging Gregory Peck was poorly cast as a newspaper reporter who finds Hepburn, playing a princess, asleep and alone in the big city. Hepburn is running away from her onerous responsibilities. She is luminous in this film, for which she won an Oscar.

I love the sensibility of black and white! In some ways it is a better creative medium than color, asking the eye to see less while the imagination sees more.

What a great day at the movies! We enjoyed ourselves thoroughly. Gary surfaced after his weekend with his guests at suppertime and watched Roman Holiday with us as well as sharing our Gaia Meditation, at which I offered the closing prayer.

2008-08-02

After Morning Offering Mick went into the steamy sunshine of this hot summer’s day and continued mulching all of our plantings, as he prepares the yard for Homecoming 2008, which will occur at the end of this month. I continued my Great Office Clean-Up by finishing the worksheet on the side effects of the medicines which doctors have prescribed for me. By lunchtime I had a complete listing of the information available. Now I can have a productive talk with my G.P. about my prescriptions.

In the afternoon I declared “free time” and worked on our recipes database. I have finished all of the meat recipes now, including red meats, white meats and seafood of all kinds, and decided to tackle the organization of the very large salad folder next. By bath time I had divided the salad recipes into eight sub-folders, and then sub-sub-categories within each sub-folder where needed. The recipes themselves have yet to be reworked, but at least you can now find a pea salad recipe or a mixed greens recipe far more easily than when all of the salads were in one huge folder.

Meanwhile Mick mulched some more, getting to within one planting of finishing the yard. The remaining planting is a large one, the cruciform patio that sprawls across the back section of our back yard, and St. James figures he will find the time during this coming week to complete that last mulching job. He’s used up over half of the huge pile of mulch left by the tree service’s chipping and shredding of our accumulated storm debris from all Mick’s customers. He said that he enjoyed himself very muulch!

Gary has been away from the L/L Research helm since Thursday in order to enjoy the DMB concert with his guests from hometown, Ohio, and I really missed his expertise today, as my printer ate a piece of paper and then expired in acute gastro-printer-itis. The instructions specified removing the sadly crumpled paper from the back of the machine, and after a fruitless half hour, I still had not been able to figure out how to get the back plate off. I left him a request for help in his Inbox.

After a lovely bath together, Mick and I went to the Lyndon Elks Club to enjoy some live music and a picnic supper at a benefit for the Pat Smith Habitat for Humanity House for 2008. The music was fine. The band, Dr. Boom, was playing a repertoire of which Mick and I were previously unaware, sounding like 1950’s bebop and blues, very toe-tapping and fun. It was an interesting ensemble of guitar, electric bass, alto sax, drums and harmonica, with one vocalist. We enjoyed ourselves thoroughly and felt good about spending our donations money on such a good cause.

Mick offered the closing prayer at the Gaia Meditation tonight. Then while I read a novel of intrigue and romance, he topped off his day of good deeds by cleaning the kitchen. We toppled into bed praising the Lord for weekends!

2008-08-01

The Ohio River Valley Steambath continued. After Morning Offering, Mick and Gary went out to gang up on the Friday mowing and gardening bonanza while I drove up to Avalon in order to back up Melissa as she worked on the steepest part of the access road with the tractor. I stayed with her for most of the day, getting back in time for some e-mail before bath time. She accomplished about forty percent of what she wants to do there, so I shall go back up next week.

Gary left Jim and the mowing at noon so that he could stand in line at Slugger Field for the Dave Matthews Band/Willie Nelson concert tonight. He and his party – his sister and her boy friend, his friend, Jessica, and her boy friend, and Valerie – had tickets for the infield, which has no seating at all. Everyone has to stand. They won’t even let people bring their own seats. I look forward to hearing about his experiences tomorrow.

After Mick and I bathed, we also took off to go to the concert, our tickets having been birthday gifts to us both from Gary. I had a wheelchair seat and Mick had the attendant’s seat next to me, so there was no jostling for position. Actually, someone had taken our numbered seats, but we went down the line and found empty seats of the same type, and no one bothered us there.

However, as Willie Nelson and his band were thoroughly drowned out by an ever-increasing crowd noise, we became less and less happy to be there. We never go to football or basketball games because of the incredible noise and the somewhat tense and nervous energy – unlike baseball games, with their far more relaxed energy – and the noise and crowding all around us got more and more aggravating. After two hours, we left. We did not hear Dave Matthews, and Gary will be unhappy with us for bailing out. But we did, and we were almost silly with relief when we got out of the crowds.

Mick took me to Applebee’s for a late dinner and we offered the Gaia Meditation there, while waiting for our food. We shared the ending prayer by holding hands, looking into each others’ eyes and praying, “Peace!”

2008-07-31

After Morning Offering I spent the morning writing a nice, long letter to Mom DeWitt, who is now living in Shelbyville, where her daughter and granddaughter live. I used to visit her fairly regularly, but in the last couple of years, I have found it a punishing trip, because of the length of time I must spend walking and sitting in uncomfortable chairs. So she is one of the very few people whom I still sit down and write, from time to time – probably twice a year, during Great Office Clean-ups such as this one. I was married to her son from 1964 to 1968. I got custody of Mom! Truly, she is the most motherly and loving Mom I have ever had.

In the afternoon, I started slogging through the reading Talitha left for me last June. She, being an M.D., wanted me to take a good look at the prescriptions I take, their side effects and potential problems. It is good work and good information, but as I worked, I could see why I kept putting this task off. I know how I got each of these medicines prescribed and remember well the symptoms they are designed to quash. They do that job. But yow! Looking at the side effects makes me wish that I needed no symptoms alleviated! Once I get this list completed, I will have a good basis for talking to my family doctor about finding alternative medicines with fewer side effects.

It rained hard overnight and this morning, so Gary and Mick ganged up on Jim’s Lawn Service’s customers in the afternoon. They were successful in getting all his customers mowed. Jim was elated! He spent his morning doing maintenance and never lost a minute of time, getting weekend jobs done while he outwaited the rain. I was supposed to go up to Avalon today to keep watch while Mel works on the steepest parts of the access road with the big tractor, but that also was a rain-out. I will try again tomorrow.

After our bath, Mick and I had a lovely frolic in the fields of the Lord and then I slept for a while before Mick woke me to come downstairs and have some dinner. When I came through the downstairs office I noticed that Gary had managed to get to the task of photocopying Maria R’s children’s hymns for me. I know she’ll be glad to get them. Mick offered the prayer at the close of the Gaia Meditation tonight.