2008-10-30

After Morning Offering, Mick left to do his day’s gardening and mowing – two of his largest-acreage customers and then his pickiest customer! He finished in good time and we enjoyed a bath and some quiet time together before the Channeling Intensive started.

Meanwhile Gary and Tom C finished polishing up the house and prepared our festive welcoming feast of chicken with mushrooms, peas Alfredo and ginger rice. Melissa's apple brown betty with caramel sauce was in reserve for dessert! It was a worthy dinner indeed! I did a bit of editing on the Feet to the Fire interview, but mostly I rested.

Talitha, Tom, Lorena, Steve T, Mick and I started off the Channeling Intensive, after eating supper and watching Barack Obama on the Jon Stewart Show, with a round-robin opening discussion, along with Gary, who will not be in the Channeling Circle, but who will be helping all weekend to produce the gathering. Maria will arrive later tonight, and Mike will arrive in the morning. That will make up our Circle this time. It was good to hear everyone’s news! The Channeling Circles will begin tomorrow.

Gary offered the closing prayer at the Gaia Meditation tonight.

2008-10-29

The day before Channeling Intensive 3 dawned chilly and fair. After Morning Offering Mick set out on his gardening rounds. I had had a sick and sleepless night, perhaps having taken ill with the 48-hour stomach flu that is going around. I certainly had the symptoms.

Mick ordered me to rest for the day, an order I was only too happy to obey. I did do a tad of e-mail, working with Michele further on 101’s cover art, answering a question from Terry H concerning TLOO Book V and letting my choirmistress know that I would miss choir practice tonight. Other than that I contented myself with reading, collecting a couple of recipes from the newspaper – Wednesday is food-section day at the Louisville Courier-Journal – and napping. I held my own all day and feel a bit better as I go to bed.

Tom C was abuzz with yard work, going all over our little acre with the blower and bringing our current crop of leaves into rows for Mick to mow when he got home. It was lovely to see Camelot's gardens starting to shine again. He alternated that job with folding, not origami but the typical tri-fold, hundreds of our fundraiser letters.

Meanwhile Melissa held forth in the kitchen, preparing two desserts and two snacks for the attendees. The house smelled wonderfully with the mingling aromas of Benedictine, Apple Brown Betty, Neiman Marcus cookies and a Worcestershire Cheese Ball.

Then she climbed a ladder and hid the cookies! Mick is renowned for doing away with any number of those cookies. It is a fun recipe, the flour fortified by ground oats and the sweetness of the chocolate chips enhanced by grated dark chocolate.

Gary took a trip to Bernheim Forest to get his batteries charged and then plunged into cleaning mode and soaked and washed all of the upholstery covers from our couch and love seat which Dan D. had so thoroughly anointed before we changed his address to the outdoors. Gary did an equally thorough job of rehabilitation. Now the furniture smells sweet and is clean again!

We came together at eventide to enjoy a good dinner and an especially interesting hour with Jon Stewart and Steven Colbert. The political season is peaking and so is their humor!

Amy Goodman, too, had a fascinating show, focusing on the disastrously malfunctioning electronic voting machines that, in many states, are now used. These machines were key in flipping the vote, quite illegally, in the 2000 and 2004 elections.

They showed video of how, even when poll workers were fiddling and “fixing” the machines, a vote for Obama would flip repeatedly to a vote for McCain. The burden of the complaint was, why wasn’t the Democratic party staging a McCain Mutiny and demanding that paper ballots be used? I think it’s a dandy question!

Mel had to leave shortly before the Gaia Meditation to see to her chicks and kitty cats. I was sorry to see her go! She is such a huge help! But Avalon was calling her.

Gary had gotten another reading from Leigh Ann L, a very gifted medium here in town, and after the Gaia Meditation, at which I offered the closing prayer, we conversed about his questions to her, and her responses until Mick and I said good-night and left Tom and Gary to their continuing conversation.

2008-10-28

This was a low-energy day for me, but a good one. After Morning Offering I worked on the UPI article for this week, the first of a series of four on JoyousChee’s question about the Confederation. I posted that before lunch. After lunch, Mel and I sallied forth to do errands. I got my glasses adjusted, gave blood for my monthly labs for Dr. J, left my choir robe to have a pesky neck button replaced with Velcro and stopped at the pharmacy.

To top off the afternoon, we shopped at Sugarbaker’s Consignments and I found a pair of purple pants, plus a couple of nice black skirts. Black goes well with purple and lavender. I think my Purple Pursuit is finished, at least until after Christmas when I may have some gift money with which to splurge.

I rested in the evening, napping most of the hours between bath and bedtime. Mick had a great day at his lawn work, getting everything done he had planned and enjoying the cool, fair weather. Gary worked at the L/L Research desk today, finishing the curriculum page for the upcoming Channeling Intensive 3 and printing out the fundraising letter for our snail mail campaign. And Melissa worked at the computer for the part of the day in which she was not aiding me.

Mick offered the closing prayer at the Gaia Meditation tonight.

Tom C arrived just before Mick and I went upstairs to bed, weary from the long drive from Texas. He will help with preparations for the Channeling Intensive and it is good indeed to see him. He is an old-fashioned Southern gentleman, the only man in my life now who calls me "Miss Carla". The day of courtly Southern courtesy is passing! It used to be quite a common mode of address.

2008-10-27

Brrr! I was so glad the plants we take outside in the summer had had their trip indoors earlier in the week, as the temperatures plummeted to near freezing last night. The plants bring such life and light to the house in wintertime, their robust presences a true blessing on gray days. Our Crimson Queen is in flower and the living room smells so sweet! It is like honeysuckle incense!

We have an oft-divided rubber tree plant, now in three pots, in the window seat at the back of the upstairs hall, and every time I go up or down stairs, they greet me with their jazzy, energetic vibrations. They pine for the sun in winter and only hold their own, but they are wonderful company for me up here in my little domain while the sun is away for a winter’s snooze.

After Morning Offering I was strictly a Johnny-One-Note at work today. JoyousChee asked me to write articles on some topics, and I spent four weeks writing on his first question, spiritual hierarchies. His second question will be equally long in answering, as it is about what organizations or groups guard and protect this planet and its people. After spending all the day long researching that question in our archives, I wound up with ten pages of good quotes and the awareness that I had yet to finish the research process, because I have not yet brought up the Confederation quotes on angels. However I will begin the series with an article tomorrow on the Council of Nine and its role in our planet’s history.

I know there will also be an article on their role in our harvest/graduation process, and one on the angels. I will also undertake to write a fourth article on the war in fourth density between the Confederation and the Orion Crusaders. It looks to be another four-part series. Joyous One, you ask great questions!

After that I will probably get back to my Difference Makers series, as so many good people are among us and their stories are strengthening in a world where the Loyal Opposition keep pumping fear and dread into our cultural milieu.

I also prepared recipes for Mel and me to cook up for Channeling Intensive 3, which begins later this week. We’ll make desserts – Apple Brown Betty with Caramel Sauce and Neiman Marcus Cookies – and a couple of snacks to fuel late-night discussions – a Worcestershire Mustard Cheese Ball and Benedictine Tea Sandwiches.

Mick sallied forth and performed his lawn and garden magic all day, having a great day and coming home happy and vibrant. We enjoyed a bath together and then embraced each other in the sensual, graceful and exciting dance of lovemaking. I almost always fall asleep in the afterglow, while Mick uses his inspirational transfer of energy to plot, plan and visualize. What a wonderful thing the Creator has given to those of us who happily can find in their mates the Perfect Partner for the Eucharist of Red Ray! We are most grateful! Thank you, Lord!

I continued to read and enjoy Michelle Tocher’s lovely novel, The May Queen, this evening along with TV. I recommend it to you if you like story-telling and whimsy, not to mention fairies and fairy stories. It is perfectly charming, with deeper, resonant notes to create a three-dimensional world focusing on the passages of life – individuation for the young and the embrace of all-that-is for the old. You can buy her book at http://www.substancebooks.com/mythic-fiction.html#mt. I recommend it. Even the cover is a delight, but the real treasure is inside! Michele is a story-teller in real life, and the deft hand of a mistress of the art is evident.

Mick offered the closing prayer at the Gaia Meditation tonight.

2008-10-26

We had a relaxing and refreshing Sabbath. In the morning I went to St. Luke’s to sing to the Lord – today our “new song” was “Ubi Caritas”, a lovely little gem of a piece whose burden, in English is, “Wherever charity and love abide, there God abides also.” Meanhwile Mick cleaned the house for the week.

Over lunch we watched the first of our two films, War, Inc. This was a fine film, with a smart, funny screenplay and a wonderful ensemble headed by John Cusack and including his sister, Joan, Hilary Duff, Marisa Tomei, Dan Ackroyd and Ben Kingsley. The film takes our current reality of rule by corporations and sends it up in a savagely hilarious spoof.

Duff’s rendition of “Bang Bang Boom Boom” wsa a high point for me, but the film was chock-full of deeply humorous moments. Rarely is it a successful ploy for a screenwriter to produce his own movie, but John Cusack was quite successful at proving the exception to the rule.

Our second feature was Goya’s Ghosts, a sumptuously realized, lavishly produced and marvelously underplayed examination of the lies everyone and every institution known to humankind tell to themselves and others. Javier Barden was masterful in his delicately nuanced and gently-voiced portrayal of an Inquisitor turned businessman, while Natalie Portman was excellent as his confessee turned prison Mom. And Stellan Skarsgaard anchored the piece as the painter, Francisco Goya, whose paintings of the Spanish Inquisition have stood the test of time.

I absolutely loved this film. Milos Forman, whose deft hand directed Amadeus as well as One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest, brought a depth of maturity and sense of balance to the piece which endlessly informed without overwhelming. The story moved forward effortlessly amidst a magnificent production with stunning costumes and beautiful locations and music. The script was deeply intelligent and its points, deeply telling. It is films like this one that keep me solidly committed as a fan of the medium.

My e-mail today contained a very interesting video in which Naomi Wolf talks about America’s situation cogently and with truth. I recommend a viewing of this piece if you have a half-hour to spare. I found it infinitely worth my while. The address is http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_XgkeTanCGI&eurl=http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2008/10/23/shocking-loss-of-freedom-in-u-s.aspx.

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

2008-10-25

After an abbreviated Morning Offering, Mick took our latest trapped raccoon to a new habitat and then cleaned the kitchen while I took on Lana L-B’s Chapter 3, reading through and suggesting some changes. It was slow going and I finished at lunch time. Mick came back from erranding to join me for a relaxing lunch and some football. By the end of the day we had seen both our alma maters, the University of Louisville and the University of Florida, prevail at their games. Post-lunch naps ensued.

Mick took the rest of the afternoon to watch more football. I worked on the Feet to the Fire interview transcript – what a mess it is! The interviewer does not use sentences, for the most part, but throws some words out with a welter of meaning. I am not satisfied to leave it like that, so each time he asks a question, I am faced with forming this chaos into prose without distorting the intention of his question. It is worth it, though, as he asked good questions and brought up topics of interest to folks these days.

My neighbor sent me a good summary of Sarah Palin’s inadequacies. It is at We are in total agreement on this point. I am hopeful that many people will see the same thing. The address is (http://pr.atwola.com/promoclk/100000075x1211202682x1200689022/aol?redir=
http://www.games.com?ncid=emlcntusgame00000001). I recommend reading it, if you have an interest. It is brief.

Gary sent out our fund-raising letter to the e-mail contacts we have late yesterday and I am happy to say that some early donations are coming in! Over $1,200.00 has already been donated. What a great start!

Romi came for the meditation and study meeting in the evening and we had a good round-robin discussion before taking up Gary’s question on the dynamic between Ra’s instructions for initiates to abandon all worldly desires and Ra's seemingly contradictory suggestion that we experience all things desired. It was a fun question and, I think, a good session. At the end, during the closing prayer I also offered the Gaia Meditation prayer.

2008-10-24

It was a rainy day, as promised. The earth was singing with joy! We had been without significant rain for weeks. Mick drove down to Shelbyville after Morning Offering and mowed Steve F’s estate. They have been in such deep drought down that way that the grass never clumped even though the rain was steady. He says he made the place look very nice. He took advantage of the rain-out and spent his afternoon napping gloriously!

Gary worked more on the fundraising letter and was up and down the stairs several times to collaborate with me on various points. Finally, we found that we had arrived at The Letter. He spent the rest of his work day sending the letter to our complete list of e-mail contacts. On Monday he will begin the task of getting the letter out snail-mail to our L/L Research address list in QuickBooks.

I also took some time to read through Lana L-B’s Chapter 2 of her book about America. The chapter dealt with the Declaration of Independence and I enjoyed rereading that fine document. I have been extremely grateful to Steve M for being my second pair of eyes on 101, and so I am paying it forward and doing the same for Lana.

Phyllis G of FATE Magazine wrote asking for some photographs to run with my interview and I passed that request on to Gary.

In the afternoon I cleaned up the manuscript of 101, taking away all the place-holder headers I had put in the document at an earlier stage when the inside pages, like table of contents, acknowledgments and dedication, had not yet been written. Then I sent it off to Ian for a final editing. Ian has many macros which sniff out typos in a manuscript, which he has developed himself during his long career of preparing books for printing – mine, his wife’s and others. When it comes back from Ian it will be ready for blitzprint.com. Now we’re just waiting on the back-cover blurbs to come in.

I got back to editing on the Feet to the Fire interview in late afternoon and cleaned up another page before Mick called bath time. It’s almost 30 pages long, so I shall be working on this puppy for a while!

Mick and I enjoyed a lovely date and then I napped until suppertime. I offered the closing prayer at the Gaia Meditation tonight.

2008-10-23

The weather is changing! An east wind soughed through here all day, bringing the temperatures ever lower. Autumn is advancing. Our black walnuts are now all bare of leaves and the yellow poplars are bare except for the tuft at the top where new leaves have grown. Soon, Mick will be crunching and bagging leaves all over Anchorage! I love the shift of seasons! The cooler weather is invigorating.

This period of low energy which I am experiencing continued today. I did not awaken until after 7:30, which is two hours later than usual, and after Morning Offering I managed to fall asleep again in my chair. In late afternoon, I did that again! I am grateful for the rest, which I apparently need, but it’s hard to be productive when you’re snoozing!

Eli sent me the mock-up he has done of my four articles on spiritual hierarchies and asked me to vet them. He has done a good job of combining them. I spent some time looking for quotes to fill out the last page of the special issue of Both Sides Now which he is creating just for my articles! I sent some suggestions to him, a couple of which he took, but he still needs more space filled on that last page. I’ll look into that tomorrow.

My afternoon was taken up with the wonderful luxury of a massage and a pedicure/manicure. Jane R, the masseuse, found the nest of very tight muscles from both shoulders to mid-back along my “wings” and really soothed that area, working patiently and using up most of our time right there. Good decision! I felt so much better afterwards! And it is wonderful to have my fingers and toes all groomed for another month.

I worked a bit on editing the Feet to the Fire interview, but it put me to sleep, so I did not get far. I humbly hope that the finished transcript will not have that effect on readers when we get it up on line! I offer some good information in it, in response to his equally good questions.

Mick and Gary did all their Friday jobs today, as a big old storm system is supposed to revolve slowly through here all day tomorrow, raining them out. They came home triumphant! Gary then cooked orange honey chicken for next week’s menu. It made the house smell so good! Meanwhile, Mick accomplished a whole lot of little errands and chores.

Mick offered the closing prayer at the Gaia Meditation tonight.

2008-10-22

Due to my oversleeping, I needed to spend the work time after our Morning Offering in the chapel and then writing my journals. I then worked with Melissa’s suggested additions and changes to the fund-raising letter we will send out. After lunch I worked on editing a long interview I gave last November to James Jancik on his “Feet to the Fire” talk show on the internet's Radio One network. (His show’s web site is (http://innersites.com/feet2fire/) and the Radio One web site is (http://jancikradionetwork.com/).

I got ensnared in Jenny Traveler’s oddities and only got six pages edited out of 29, so my work is cut out for me tomorrow!

I asked Gary to create a “page 2” of our fundraising letter, showing our actual income and outgo at L/L Research for 2007 and 2008. It seems to me that when asking for funds, it helps people to know such details. That way they are sure that their donations are being applied to the things for which they value our group and not being spent on advertising and promotion.

He and our bookkeeper, Pam, worked all afternoon to fix a glitch in QuickBooks that was reporting a good many of our donations twice and inflating our donations amounts badly. Our expenses were misreported also. They finally found creative way to use reports to adjust the income and outgo to true amounts. It was a long afternoon for them. But now Gary can finish page two!

Mick came home after a very full day of mowing and gardening, dusty and weary. He said that as he was working on a customer’s gardens who happens to live across the street, he had an unexpected visitor – Dan D. Lion McCarty Cat! It was a real treat for them both. Dan D. seems to have worked things out with the other two neighborhood cats, since they were all peacefully seated within several feet of each other near Mick, he said.

We had a lovely bath together and then dressed for a special treat – an evening of cocktails and noshes at Vincenzo’s, a premier Louisville restaurant downtown, courtesy of Glenview Trust, which manages Don’s trust for us.

The canapés included truly rare roast beef, poached salmon, a tortellini pasta dish to eat on the way to heaven and a scrumptious brie quiche. Lots of fresh fruit,Italian tomatoes with herbed toppings and asparagus rounded out the selections. We feasted to our heart’s content and noted that this year there was no speech from the President. Can you blame the man for avoiding the subject of stocks, Wall Street and the economy!

We saw the dessert tray removed just as Mick was heading for it, so instead drove to Baskin Robbin’s for some ice cream to top off our feast. We arrived home just in time for the Gaia Meditation, at which Gary gave the closing prayer.

2008-10-21

Having overslept badly, I spent my time after Morning Offering writing my journals and taking some chapel time. I fell asleep over that task and awoke near lunchtime. Let’s hear it for goofy senior citizens!

I rallied and took off into the glorious, cool autumn sunshine with Melissa for some wardrobe-hunting. We went to Margaret’s Consignment, where I happily found a crystal-pleated black skirt, floor length, for tomorrow’s Glenview Trust bash at Vincenzo’s Restaurant, as well as a purple suede jacket. Add a lavender sweater and a purple turtleneck and you have a very successful hunting foray.

Back at Camelot, Gary and I conferred over the upcoming 2009 L/L Research Operating Funds Drive. He departed to get our e-mail and snail-mail mailing lists ready and I spent the rest of the afternoon creating a request letter. We did not get out a request letter last year, to our detriment, and we fell short in gaining operating funds for this year. And in late summer of this year we hit the wall and had to appeal for funds to carry us through.

People such as Terry H of Taipei and Bill H of California went all out to help us and we pulled through. With two Gatherings this fall, the Homecoming and the upcoming Channeling Intensive, with special donations to help with our printing of 101 and with our royalty check for the last six months coming in, we are limping through to Christmas. Hopefully our letter will create a balanced budget for 2009!

I had a good time detailing the many things we do with our donations. Nothing is spent for advertising or management. The bulk of our funds is spent on the fees for Melissa, our Avalon caretaker, who is performing miracles on Avalon Farm, Gary, our incredible admin, and Pam, our bookkeeper. They all receive far less than they could get elsewhere for the same work, and they all do a fantastic job with much love.

I, freed from having to perform Gary’s and Pam’s work this year, have brought two manuscripts to the last stages before publishing, with The Aaron/Q’uo Dialogues at Hampton Roads being considered, and 101 just waiting for blurbs for the back cover before going to blitzprint for self-publishing. I’ve been able to travel and speechify at the International UFO Congress and have enjoyed getting back to writing weekly UPI articles.

Gary has produced three Gatherings this year, and will soon have number four under his belt. He answers an amazing volume of e-mail and helps me out in a thousand ways that keep me productive. His kind and humor-filled voice on the phone and over e-mail is a wonderful one to represent us to the world and he does an incredible job.

Melissa’s work was exciting to discuss, as she has single-handedly reworked our very steeply hilly, winding, falling-off-the-edge-of-a-ravine half-mile-plus of access road at Avalon, using the box blade on the tractor, a pick-ax and a metal rake to put in water bars, beef up the eroding ravine-edge roadside and take down the crown of the access road all the way down.

I also mentioned her mushroom farming and the complete repainting of the interior and the roof of Sugar Shack, the tumble-down cabin in which she manages to live well on Avalon. Her works in progress I could not find space to mention, since I wanted to keep the begging letter at one page. But she has put in huge numbers of hours on selective tree clearing, following our Kentucky Forestry and U. S. Forestry agents’ advice for helping the farm’s good trees to thrive. She works incredibly hard and earns less money than I earned per month in 1966!

I love and respect our team so much! And that includes our wonderful volunteers. We have generous transcribers, skilled web-masters and people such as Romi, who keeps our computers going, and Michele M, who just created a wonderful book cover for 101, who get absolutely nothing for their labors of love. We are beyond fortunate. But we do need the funds to continue. I ended the letter by saying, if you like what we do, then please help!

We’ll have a page two which will consist of a breakdown of our income and outgo for 2007 and 2008. I want our donors to see that we are serious about using their funds wisely.

Here’s hoping that our letter will be effective.

Mel was busy after we got back from shopping, cooking sweet tea breads, two loaves of banana bread and two loaves of mango bread. The house smelled wonderful all afternoon!

Romi came over for a visit at dinnertime and enjoyed the feast Gary had created as we watched episodes of the TV show House, one new show and two older episodes. At 9:00 we sat for the Gaia Meditation, with Melissa offering the closing prayer.

2008-10-20

Our drought continues, although the weather is so lovely it is easy to forget just how thirsty the earth here is. After Morning Offering, Mick set out on his typically full day of mowing and raised so much dust that he had to clean himself up three times before bath time! The third time he was not at a place which had a hose, so he tried to clean himself up with his blower. It did a good job, but the breeze blew his baseball cap off and he had to chase it down the street.

Meanwhile, I spent the morning creating this week’s UPI article and posting it. In the afternoon, I edited the channeling from our September 27th meeting. It was a pot-luck Q and A session from readers’ questions sent in to Gary from around the world. I thought the session was quite interesting.

I also wrote Nicole B-I of the International UFO Congress, (www.ufocongress.com) attaching the final draft of the manuscript for 101. My blurbs are not in yet, and we’re waiting on them so Michele can finish the back cover design. I did not want to wait any longer to ask for a place in the line-up for next February. Mick and I have a good time there each year that we are invited. It functions as our only true vacation time, since our two other trips per year are to Nebraska. Usually my fee for speaking there covers Mick's travel cost, and we are only out for the cost of the food we eat.

It’s great to go to Nebraska and be with Jim’s Mom, but the times there cannot be said to be real holidays, since our environment there is 24/7 TV, heavy on CNN, soap operas and game shows, in a claustrophobically well insulated house that is kept at eighty degrees at the minimum. And when one goes outside, one is in small-town Nebraska, where the skies are full of the smell of a meat packing plant all day.

After a much needed bath and whirlpool, the now dustless St. James and I repaired upstairs for a deliciously healing and revivifying date, after which we came down for supper, the Colbert Report and the Gaia Meditation. I offered the closing prayer tonight.

2008-10-19

Mick took me to church and then traveled fifteen miles down the interstate to deposit an opossum which he caught overnight in our have-a-heart trap. We are trying to clear the yard of critters who steal Dan D.’s food, and the supply of them seems substantial! The score stands at three raccoons and a possum – so far. And still trapping! Mick says he may give it a rest till next weekend.

I love coming back into the house after the service is over on Sundays. The smell of bleach in the bathroom and the shining cleanliness everywhere speak of a home well loved. Mick is a terrific housekeeper!

Over lunch we saw a small, earnest and gentle film written by and starring Philippe Caland, with Forest Whitaker, Minnie Driver and Virginia Madsen offering a solid ensemble. It was called Ripple Effect. The burden of the story was that you never know what effect an action of yours might have on others. It was short and unpretentious and I enjoyed it thoroughly. Forest Whitaker shone as a philosophical paraplegic with good things to say.

After a nap for Mick and some reading for me – I kept having to tend to interstitial cystitis symptoms and never could find sleep – we watched the blockbuster film, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. The film had been panned when it came out as derivative and lacking in plot. Those criticisms were solid. The energy of the first film was backed by a varied story with a strong plot line and intriguing minor characters. The energy of this sequel was not so well backed in terms of the plot line. However Shia LaBeouf was taking as a character reminiscent of one of the TV stars of my youth, Edd Byrnes, in his role as Kooky (Kooky, lend me your comb). Cate Blanchett was a good villainess to balance the stoic heroism of Harrison Ford, although I kept seeing her as Bob Dylan, which confused her intended impact! And John Hurt and Karen Allen rounded out a good ensemble. We enjoyed the adventure story's rich supply of weird effects, occult skulls, zombies and all-around action.

Mick offered the closing prayer at the Gaia Meditation tonight.

2008-10-18

After a very brief Morning Offering – since we meditate with the group on Saturdays, we shorten the morning ritual – Mick spent his morning scrubbing the kitchen and then going on a round of errands. I had overslept badly, and so spent most of my morning writing my journals, having some chapel time and napping, inadvertently, in my office recliner.

We rendezvoused for lunch and some football, both of us napping for a while as cheers and crowd noise swirled around us from the television. I roused enough to do just a bit of e-mail, sending my two speeches on 2012 to Bill H, who is concerned about the upcoming shift, and then reading through and making suggestions for Lana L-B’s first chapter of her book on America.

Romi visited and worked on The Alphabet Mosaics, scanning her appendices. He ran into a fatal snag, however, and shall have to consult Ian, who is the most skilled at using publishing software of those within our little crew of servants of the light here at L/L Research. Ro was having the print shrink and the margins change when he tried to combine two scans into one document. That won’t do! Hopefully Ian will have the answer.

What else but football would we watch at suppertime, with the season in full swing? College football is a favorite of Mick’s and the season is just too short! I tend to read a book while the games are going on, and look up to catch the instant replays of choice plays. It is an old ritual for Mick and me and we look forward to it each year.

Gary joined Mick and me for a silent meditation after we had the usual round-robin discussion of our week. It was a lovely, sacred time together and it went far too quickly! I offered the Gaia Meditation prayer at the end of our meditation time.

2008-10-17

Snuggling into a sweater for the second day in a row, I enjoyed the crisp air while patting Dan D. on the front porch after Morning Offering. I saw Mick and Gary drive off for their Friday mowing marathon while I was out there. Gary and Mick both had on their jackets. For the long stretches of a Kentucky summer season, one can hold a belief that it will never be cool again!

One of the letters I answered today was from Vara, in Alaska. The chill has seriously descended for her, plus her landlord has been lax in providing her with a stove which works, so she is making do with a crockpot. "We’re in the Army now!" I sent her three crockpot recipes for her perusal, two for meat dishes and one for a mulled wassail. Some dark rum and brandy, nicely spiced and cooked with cider, might cut the bite of winter for an army wife who has been shoveling snow seemingly forever, she says.

This was a day for details. Both JoyousChee and Eli wrote concerning publishing the UPI hierarchies series in www.cosmiclighthouse.com and Both Sides Now (http://www.bothsidesnow.info), respectively. The joyous one let me know he would publish all four of the parts, although he realized that only those already fascinated with The Law of One would fully appreciate the fourth segment, on Ra’s archetypes. Eli had many questions about how to put the parts together, as he wants to publish the four parts as one big article. That will be a long one!

Bill H called yesterday and we were playing phone tag. So I e-wrote him to let him know what was happening with 101, thinking that this was why he had called. He eventually caught up with me in the afternoon and explained that what he wanted was information on the coming shift. He will call back to talk at more length.

Michele had experienced some psychic greeting the night after she worked on the cover for 101 and wanted to know what to do to respond positively. I sent her the section from the book concerning psychic protection.

Pete D wondered about how things with BookSurge had gone and I wrote to tell him that we had not found it to be the best deal for us. We had a conversation back and forth, with me explaining about our having an on-line store. He asked about advertising his book, Baffled by the Bible, in our store and I told him that we had a "Friends Of" section planned for the store, but that our web guy, Steve E, for B4 had not gotten that feature operational. I gave him Steve’s address and encouraged him to write and inquire about it. The encouragement might help Steve to get that feature up and running.

Jean-Claude had written to assure me he would write a blurb for 101, and also to offer to donate some seed money for our upcoming 2009 L/L Research Operating Funds campaign. I wrote to thank him for both excellent aids to us.

Ian and I had a couple of conversations about technical things connected with 101’s cover and also the bar code, which he suggested I get blitzprint to send Michele ASAP, so she can place it herself rather than letting them stick it just anywhere on the back cover.

Talitha wrote that she had encountered some deep healing practices she particularly liked and was using them for distance healing treatments on me. She asked me to let her know if I noticed any changes in my wellness. I let her know that so far I was still quite uncomfortable and limited, but that my spirits were high and joyful, and that I felt peaceful and serene. I conjectured that perhaps this was the first fruits of her distant healing work. We agreed quite some time ago that she would do distant healing on me, so this was not an infringement at all but a very welcome gift.

Mick and Gary finished their lawn work in mid-afternoon and Mick took Fielder, who has thrown his belt – again – to Louisville Tractor to be repaired, after he got his weekly maintenance done on his equipment. Meanwhile Gary created Salmon Loaf, Pouch Potatoes with Cheddar and Carrots and Green Beans for our coming week’s daily feasts.

Mick and I enjoyed a soothing bath together and then a lovely date before descending for a late supper and the Gaia Meditation, at which Gary offered the closing prayer.

2008-10-16

What a difference a day makes! A cold front moved through overnight, giving us just a small spatter of rain but bringing the temperature down twenty degrees. Here come sweaters and socks, at last! After Morning Offering Mick set out on a big mowing day, cleaning up leaves and trimming up the place for his two largest customers and then working at St. Luke’s as long as he could before needing to quit for the day. He did not get to cutting down two 15’ firs that have died on campus as he had hoped, as it was just too full of a day otherwise.

I had trouble seeing all day, my eyes very swollen and sore, and the Interstitial Cystitis was kicking up as well, so things went slowly, although my spirits were joyful. I first dealt with Michele on the cover for 101, bringing Gary into the loop and asking him to help her with the high-resolution image of Don Quixote. Then I followed through with Ian’s suggestion that we be sure and get the image of the bar code from blitzprint as soon as possible, so Michele can add that to the cover herself and avoid their placing it in an unfortunate position on the cover.

I discovered that we had not yet assigned an ISBN number to 101, and took care of that. We have a long list of Bowker numbers which they kindly gave us some years ago. With this book, we have come close to using half of them. That’s satisfying!

Then I had some e-conversations with those who will write blurbs for 101, all on the subject of “When do you need this?” Now, people, I need this now!

Such doings, plus writing my journals and having some chapel time, took me to lunch. My afternoon was spent in editing our first channeling session of the new season. I liked it and enjoyed the feeling of starting our new “year” of public meetings.

It was good to have a bath with Mick and a quiet evening. I took lots of naps, inadvertently. Mick had to awaken me in the living room to announce bedtime. I offered the prayer at the close of the Gaia Meditation tonight.

2008-10-15

As I donned my sandals and summer-weight pants this morning, I thought, “This is farewell!” A cold front is moving through tonight, and I made sure to get out in the yard and enjoy the day. I am happy to say that Dan D. is becoming hard to find, venturing far and wide and producing his first mouse for our approval.

I worked all day on the UPI article on spiritual hierarchies, this concluding part on the archetypal mind as articulated by the Ra group. It is a thoughtful piece and may not appeal to everyone. But it belonged as a part of the answer to JoyousChee question. It felt good to have it written and posted at last. Usually I can work on preparing an article and then write it in one day. This week, feeling a bit rough, it took me from Monday until Wednesday!

Michele sent a mock-up of the cover for 101. It is just lovely. My only request was to add to the front cover the publisher’s name and logo – L/L Research and the Picasso drawing of Don Quixote. She checked on the web and did not find a high-resolution drawing there, so I asked Gary to send her the one he scanned for Ian some time ago directly from the big print we have hanging in our living room – the very same print that I had hanging over my desk in 1970 when Don and I first decided to use the print as our little symbol of intent: “We dream impossible dreams!”

I also sent her a couple of choices for an author photo for the back cover. She asked me if I would like them cropped and I acknowledged that a head shot would probably make a better appearance than a half-shot. She will send me some possible choices tomorrow.

I still have not received any blurbs for the back cover! I really need them. Perhaps I will write a reminder note tomorrow to those I asked. It is exciting to see the final details of the book coming together.

I did a half-dozen personal e-mails before Mick called bath time and rounded out my work day by collecting a very nice Somalian stew recipe from the newspaper. I was tickled, also, to pick up a new hint on an old dish – mashed potatoes. The recipe in the paper included two teaspoons of apple cider vinegar along with the usual butter, garlic and sour cream. We’ll have to try that!

After Morning Offering, Mick started his day by taking our third raccoon, which he is trapping in Have-A-Heart traps, fifteen miles south of here where there is a large wilderness habitat directly off the expressway. Since Dan D. went outside to live, they have been eating his food, tame and bold enough to walk up on the porch with us standing on it.

After setting it on the porch one night, during which we had to keep Mr. Lion-Cat in the basement overnight to avoid catching him in the trap instead of the critters, Mick began setting the trap up on our bird-feeding station, which is outside our living room window and well off the ground. That works just as well, and Dan D. Lion McCarty Cat can remain outdoors, where he likes to be. He was mightily upset to be kept in the basement and set up an unholy howl at an unholy hour, about which both Mick and Gary told me. I wonder how many coons there are to catch! We’ll see.

Mick's day was mostly spent in gardening. His customer's planting plans keep growing! And he is almost finished now with the full-yard clean-up for another customer. This has been a massive job, and he is tickled to have only one more afternoon of work on a wild area at the very back of the estate which is piled with ancient debris and choked with weeds, to have his masterwork complete at last.

After a refreshing bath and some cuddle-time with Mick I went to choir practice while Mick did all sorts of domestic chores like taking out the garbage, sacking the recyclables and sorting out my pills for the week ahead – I use little pill holders that give you a week’s worth already sorted by day and time. We happily came together for a late supper and the Gaia Meditation, at which Mick offered the closing prayer.

2008-10-14

This incredibly lovely, summery spell of weather continued today. After Morning Offering Mick set out upon his rounds, returning at the end of the day satisfied and dusty. The hoped-for rain evaporated before it got here, so we remain arid and thirsty. He encountered yet more storm debris today! He wonders when he’ll see the end of it. I imagine he will still be working at customer’s downed trees this winter, those who eschew tree services. Ah well, it pays the bills!

I continued to work on the UPI article, ‘Hierarchies IV” but I erased as much as I wrote until late afternoon, when I finally got on the right road, I think. A nap or two in my chair helped me through a continuing period of feeling under par. Holly says the angels put me to sleep when I need it. I’m torn between feeling thankful for the rest and irritated at the lost work time.

Michele M sent in an enhanced book cover for 101 which was even better than her first version, having the same spiral but with more interest – glowing centers to the chakras and a subtle diamond pattern in the background. She also sent in a middle-ground version with glowing chakra cnters but no checkerboarding in the background, just black. I told her to run with the version that has the background diamond pattern. it adds a good texture. She will wrap this pattern around the spine and back cover.

Ian is getting ready to post our Homecoming 2008 material, a rich group of archive quotes and presenters’ materials for over a dozen topics which we enjoyed discussing at Homecoming this summer. It makes a handsome document indeed. I wrote an introductory paragraph for it and made other decisions as to how it would look. It is wonderful of him to take the time to add this document to our archives. The various presenters’ topics are fun to browse.

I also got Dana Redfield’s ‘author biography’ together for Vara to use in www.planetlightworker.com when she publishes Dana’s first mosaic and wisdom, on the theme of ‘A’.

At the end of the day I made another Kick-Ass Card for Bob R. Janet Planet, who is visiting him, called and I tried to call her back to find out how Bob is faring – the last I heard, he was on dialysis, trying to get healthy enough so that they could operate on his crushed vertebrae – but we just played phone tag.

Mick and I came together for our bath and then a sparkly, effervescent energy exchange. Yum! Gary joined us for supper and offered the closing prayer at the Gaia Meditation. Go Earth! We love You!

2008-10-13

This was pretty much a “down” day for me, in that I was feeling enough below par that I was not able to focus in on my day’s work, which was to finish the series for UPI and JoyousChee on hierarchies. I did get a good deal of preparatory work done but I was not ready to write. I threw in the towel in mid-afternoon and went to bed for a total rest.

However, I was able to get Melissa reunited with her Saab, which is now repaired to an extent. She will have to save up for three months or so to go to the next step in getting her valiant little car back up to snuff.

The drive into downtown Louisville was simply beautiful. The trees have not hit their peak of color yet, and there is as much green to greet the eye along the road as there is gold, orange and red. But I saw a few bare trees, too, in town, so I would guess our fall color will peak within the next week or so.

Over the weekend Mel had made a rough draft of the 26 figures in Dana’s odd-page Appendix in The Alphabet Mosaics, one for each letter of the alphabet. Lists of words will go under each figure. Her drawings were extremely accurate and good, but it seemed to us as though the scale was too large. But neither of us liked the scale Dana used either, as it was too small.

So Mel found advice and better pens at the local art supply shop. As it happens, there is now technology to shrink or enlarge an image infinitely, and we can do the drawings larger than we want them in the book, for clarity’s sake in the drawing, and then shrink them to the size we desire.

I also received by e-mail Michele M’s first try at a book cover for 101. It is stunning – a spiral of ascending chakra colors. The design is beautiful and simple and just about perfect. I wrote back to say so and also to ask about title placement and back-cover wrap.

After Morning Offering, Mick spent the morning continuing to work on a customer’s yard. This lady, recently widowed, had had to neglect everything but her husband’s health for some time before he passed through the gates to larger life and all her plantings were in ruins. Wild areas had developed. It was a mess! Then the windstorm came through a month ago and put the finishing touches on the wilderness. Mick has patiently weeded every bed, trimmed every hedge and today he finished working to redeem a wild area. Now he has the storm debris and other, older debris to remove and her little piece of this earth shall be entirely tidied. She has been gone during this period, and is due back, for a sweet surprise, soon!

In the afternoon Mick went to a customer’s mother’s home on the Ohio River and found lots of storm debris which the customer had omitted to mention, which Mick had to process before he could get at the mowing which he had been asked to do. It made for a long and tiring day for him, and a dusty one, as we are still without rain. We got all cleaned up together and then enjoyed a quiet evening. I offered the closing prayer at the Gaia Meditation tonight.

2008-10-12

We enjoyed another summery day. I spent my morning in church, where we sang a Purcell piece for the offertory and Father Joe talked about Christ’s invitation to us all to participate in the wedding feast of the Lamb. It was a stirring reminder to live with joy. Meanwhile, St. James wielded vacuum and dustcloth and made Camelot shine.

We rendezvoused for lunch and our first of two films, Savage Grace. It was a beautifully produced and true story of the vagaries of a wealthy couple and their child. Julianna Moore was hypnotically sensual in her role as the mother, a wicked and perverse creature so fond of sex that all her boundaries disappeared. Also outstanding was Eddie Redmayne as the equally perverse and criminally minded son. Stephen Dillane played the husband competently. Moore’s costumes were simply lovely and all the production values soared. This is one of those films that appeal to the lowest instincts and I felt soiled by it to an extent after the shocking ending.

With a break for a nap and making popcorn, we watched our second film, an engaging romp called Leatherheads. George Clooney played an early footballer and Renee Zellweger played an early woman sports writer. The film took us through the beginning days of football from the start, where you had to touch the football to the ground before a score was called – hence the name “touch down” – to the modern era of a thousand rules and millions of dollars to be made. The music track was outstanding and all the production values were fine. It was a charming movie, one we laughed our way through, lots of fun!

Jim and Gary played catch before supper as the leaves fell like rain. Mick offered the prayer at the Gaia Meditation tonight.

2008-10-11

We stayed with summer weather today, enjoying a brilliant sun and a harvest blue sky. I have never solved the conundrum of whether the sky is so preternaturally blue at this time of the year because of the contrast of the bright autumn leaves or whether it has to do with the declining strength of the sun. Whatever the cause, it is lovely to behold.

My chief work today was writing the response for Buke T on his question of whether we were all one or whether we were individuals. I took two hours yesterday to form a body of quotations from The Ra Material on this point and then spent another two hours today writing the response. It felt as though I had given him some good thoughts to work with, a good feeling. I was also delighted to receive a handsome donation to L/L Research for the work I did - i charged him only for the writing time. It reminds me of the fellow who paid Edgar Cayce to channel on the state of the world rather than the state of his health. Cayce must have enjoyed dealing with that different and less personal slant, too!

Then in the late afternoon Romi came for a work period on The Alphabet Mosaics. Ro scanned a dozen or so of the three dozen pages needing scanning for the appendices, while Melissa and I squared off on one of the two odd pages.

We spent our time peering at the almost indecipherable lists of words on the sheet, coming away by suppertime with all the squiggles either made into words or discarded as illegible. We lost some words, but not as many as I thought we would. Mel had a magnifying glass and got a whole bunch of words deciphered that I thought were hopelessly illegible.

Mel will redraw the central figures, of which there are 26 – one for each letter of the alphabet. Then she will print the words for each figure, as did Dana, under them. I am so grateful to her for volunteering to reconstitute Dana's page. It is painstaking work and work I cannot do as I have no artist’s skill whatsoever.

I am hopeful that one or two more work sessions such as this will see the work done to complete all the preparation of the material included in the book. It feels good to get going on this very worthy project!

We had a good L/L study and meditation meeting, after our supper was finished. Gary, Ro, Mel, Mick and I were the circle of seeking tonight. Gary had a question about how to process catalyst well, using the simile of the physical process of digestion, where the body takes the nutrients it needs and flushes the rest from the body as waste. The response continued the simile. I look forward to reading the transcript when I edit it. In the process of closing the meditation, I offered the Gaia Meditation prayer.

2008-10-10

There was a mist on the meadow when we awoke today, but the weather became unseasonably sunny and warm by noon. After Morning Offering Gary and Mick set out on their Friday mowing and finished by early afternoon, leaving Mick to do his weekly maintenance, which this week included oil changes all around, since it was so dry and dusty this week, and Gary to do his cooking.

I worked on Buke T’s questions off and on, around inadvertent napping and fielding a call from Melissa, who was stranded downtown at her auto repair shop. They had intended to turn her car around in a morning but the part they had ordered was faulty. They will need to keep her Saab over the weekend. I drove over to the west end and retrieved her. It was a beautiful drive, with the leaves beginning to color up all over town.

Gary and Mel joined Mick and me after we shared a bath and a priestly, very exciting date, and the four of us enjoyed supper together. Melissa offered the prayer at the Gaia Meditation. I could not keep my eyes open, so went upstairs early and left Mel and Mick to watch the University of Louisville beat Memphis 35 to 28. Mick came up after the third quarter and we saw the end of the game together before we said our final prayers.

2008-10-09

We enjoyed warmer weather today. I had a beautiful drive into town to see a spine specialist this afternoon. After poring over my MRI scan and taking many more X-rays, Dr. C pronounced my upper spine “rotten” and the subluxation between C-1 and C-2 growing but felt that it was best to do nothing and just watch the situation. My left arm symptoms are down to a dull roar, so I agreed with him. The most likely treatments are epidural prednisone and surgery. Those are both serious treatments, so I fervently agreed with him. Less is more! He noted that there is still room for my spinal cord amidst all the spurs and fusions, thank the good Lord!

That took my afternoon, and my morning was spent in organization. I now have a list stretching to two full pages of things to do – from working on The Alphabet Mosaics to doing Buke’s e-mail counseling to working on the upcoming fund drive to editing on three transcripts - two music-and-story pieces and an interview – to doing six small projects to writing a snail mail note to responding to forty e-mail correspondents. For some reason I feel more competent just knowing the sum of my work ahead! Ah, psychology.

I created a homemade "Kick-Ass" card for Bob R, who is still in hospital being treated for his cancer and failed kidneys. I received a nice note today from our mutual friend, Janet-Planet, an ardent sun-gazer, who is visiting him. She says that he is still enjoying eating. Now that's good to hear!

After Morning Offering, Mick departed for a full day of gardening and chores – no mowing today. He trimmed hedges all morning and did handyman chores all afternoon. I knew he’d been indoors the latter part of the day since there were no pieces of grass or other plant debris in the bath water tonight!

We enjoyed Amy Goodman’s Democracy Now and Jon Stewart's and Steve Colbert's shows over dinner. We especially enjoyed seeing Michelle Obama, whose words of unity were lovely to hear. We then offered the Gaia Meditation, with Mick praying at the close.

2008-10-08

While the pale sun peered intermittently through the overcast, after Morning Offering Mick set out on a gardening-only day. He weeded, trimmed and mostly transplanted and seeded for two customers who are improving their gardens. He had thought to be able to clean up a vacation property on the river for a customer’s Mom today but one of his gardening customers kept adding bushes, grasses and even a whole new planting bed with brick trim to his work, and he felt lucky to complete that by bath time.

It’s a blessing to have enthusiastic customers like her at this time of year, when there is a small pause between mowing time and leave-crunching time. It pays the bills! And since both gardeners live on our little street, it’s beautifying our immediate neighborhood!

I spent my day asking for favors. I wrote all the rest of the people Gary, Mick and I had identified as people to ask for blurbs for the back cover of 101.

Then I wrote an invitation to Romi and Melissa to come for a Saturday afternoon of work on the two odd pages of Dana’s Alphabet Mosaics. I promised wine and brie! This work should get us over the hump on the remaining tasks needed to assemble Dana’s book. We’re working the Ro Man hard on this project, but Dana was his special friend and he asked for the job, so that’s OK! It will all be repaid when we actually have this beautiful and provocative work printed.

Then I took a careful look at Jude’s final manuscript of The Aaron/Q’uo Dialogues, and I am happy to say it was impeccable. I saw not one hair out of place. I bet it is the cleanest manuscript ever submitted to a publisher! And kudos to Steve M for his great job on the revised session summaries in the Table of Contents! I attached the manuscript to an e-mail to Bob F at Hampton Roads Publishing, asking him to replace the manuscript he had with this one, detailing the changes – trivial except for the replaced Table of Contents – and meekly asking, “Sir, excuse me, Sir, but could you, after four months, give us a yes or no on accepting this book for publication?”

The remainder of my work day was spent on locating the most crucial e-mails in my Inbox and responding to those. There were nine of them, and I was finishing the last of them at bath time. Ah, timing! There’s a sea of e-mail in my Inbox remaining and a ton to do ahead of me there, but it’s wonderful to feel that I’m at least responding to the highest priority issues and using my time well.

In the edges of the day, when I was recovering from having to make a trip away from my office, pant, pant, I reworked a recipe for Banana Muffins and collected three new soup recipes, Cream of Tomato and Garlic Soup, Cream of Tomato and Artichoke Hearts Soup and French Onion and Garlic Soup. They all sound deliciously good for chilly days!

Gary ran around all morning – again – working with the generator installers. Lights went on and off ad infinitum and my little office printer went bazoo, generating any number of power-off sheets. Finally, they have the generator working, after two break-downs and two special parts needing to be ordered.

Tomorrow is the Presenting of the Bill. I checked with Pam, our bookkeeper, and we are ready to write the check. I was pleased with just how much of our needs will be met. We will lose the freezer, one refrigerator and one water heater. But we still have one fridge and one water heater, so we’ll fare well, only having to make an adjustment or two. Everything else except the air conditioning for the house will be on-line during outages - all the lights; all the computers. This is superb!

I offered the closing prayer at the Gaia Meditation tonight.

2008-10-07

I slept very late this morning and after Morning Offering I spent some of my morning work time writing my journals and having my morning chapel time. Holly’s Word for me today was ‘finish’. She encouraged me to finish all the bits and pieces that I had half-done. So I ordered some lingerie and some foot detox pads, wrote a note to the Sanctuary of Eternal Truth, a spiritualist organization near here, asking them to switch me to an e-mail subscription and in general got my office details all finished. It took me until lunchtime and my goodness, the office felt better without that clutter of this and that.

Gary and I had a planning meeting after lunch and organized our mutual attack upon the maze of work ahead. We still need to hear back from BookSurge before choosing a printer for 101, but Gary will contact them. I will contact Michele M, who designed the beautiful cover for A Book of Days, and ask her if she would like to donate a cover for 101. And I’ll write Scott Mandelker, Phyllis Schlemmer and Jean-Claude Koven, all of whom are fellow authors and/or channels, asking them for blurbs for the back cover.

Gary and I also talked about starting the yearly fund-raiser for L/L Research expenses in 2009. We would like to kick that off on October 16th. By then we hope to have the printing of 101 in hand. Morris H, our faithful vice-president, has offered to donate for that, and it is possible that he will donate the entire cost, which would free us up to focus just on our operating expenses in terms of explaining what we are asking for in our solicitation letter to everyone for whom we have an address!

We also discussed what comes next in the Alphabet Mosaics project and settled upon a Saturday work time for Romi, Mel, Gary and me. We will gang up on the two difficult odd pages in Dana’s Appendices. They both need reconstituting from 14”-long pages to two 11”-long pages and while Dana’s drawings are clear, we will need to paste those onto the new pages and then print the lists of words under each by hand, as the printing of the words on the copies is too faint to reproduce well.

Once that hurdle is cleared, Romi’s task of scanning the three dozen or so Appendix pages at a quality suitable for printing will be very much simpler, so it is a project well worth doing, and it will be so much quicker and more fun to do it together.

I ended the afternoon with a clean office and a typed to-do list that is tidily organized by priority, feeling much more organized and energized. I especially look forward to working with the questions which Buke T has sent in. He has set up the equivalent of counseling appointments on e-mail, only his questions are not about personal problems but on philosophy and the Law of One. I love working with people by e-mail. It is easier for me than telephone counseling, since I do not have to hold the telephone and since I can work at my own pace. I do enjoy telephone counseling, but e-mail is my favorite.

Gary had a very productive day at the L/L Research helm and then joined Mick and me for dinner. He went to Valerie’s to watch the second presidential debate. Mick offered the closing prayer at the Gaia Meditation tonight.

2008-10-06

It was lovely weather today, back in the low eighties and golden with sun and falling leaves. I was out in it this afternoon as I kept an appointment for a reading with Leigh Ann H and greatly enjoyed seeing spots of color everywhere. The peak is still a couple of weeks away, but already I can see that it will be a good year. The colors are very vivid.

After Morning Offering, I worked on my UPI article for the week, discovering for a third time that after the article was done I still had more to cover on spiritual hierarchies.

Mick worked a very full day, coming home happy and dusty at bath time. We need rain so badly! Supposedly we shall get some later in the week. He had to wash his hands and face before the bath to avoid getting the bathwater really dirty! After our whirlpool, we shared a particularly beautiful energy exchange. I snoozed in the afterglow while Mick enjoyed his brain pulses. He often gets what he calls brain orgasms in his third-eye location after we share energy.

Dan D. seems to have acclimated very well to being an outdoor kitty. He no longer cries at the door and after our patting times, he leaps away to chase something or have a bite to eat. What a blessing!

It was Gary’s day to serve at Cracker Barrel. He came home to share dinner with us as well as the Gaia Meditation, at which I offered the closing prayer.

2008-10-05

We had a beautiful day of rest, with cool breezes and golden, russet and red leaves beginning to fall. Since it was a “mass in the grass” and the blessing of the animals today at church, I decided to pass on the service. There was no choir and no place to sit. So my morning was a delicious relaxation into the world of Sunday puzzles. Mick scoured the house and got everything straight for another week.

We sat down to our first of two movies with lunch. Then She Found Me starred Matthew Broderick, Colin Firth, Bette Midler and Helen Hunt. Hunt also co-wrote and directed the piece. It was an OK film romance but the tempo was annoyingly slow. Helen Hunt, listen up! For your next film, pace things more briskly!

Midler stole the show as the mother who decides, when her daughter is in her mid-twenties, that she wants to form a relationship with her. Hunt is the daughter she gave up for adoption at birth.

I am glad I watched the film, because I greatly enjoyed watching Bette Midler walk. I’ve loved her work for twenty-eight years, ever since I saw a performance film of hers in 1980. She is a stunning talent, a wonderful singer and a deft comedienne. And her walk is unique. It is almost a trot. It takes high heels and I could practice it for a lifetime and not get it. I’d know that walk anywhere. Think Jane Fonda on short legs.

We broke for a nap and then segued into popcorn and film number two, Bonneville. What a treat! Firstly, the screenplay caught something very hard to nab about losing one’s mate. It is not a time for logic. Jessica Lange should get an Oscar nomination for her very focused and nuanced portrayal of a woman who has lost her husband.

She is forced by her husband’s daughter, played with killing style by Christine Baransky, to drive cross-country from Idaho to the California coast with her husband’s ashes in order that his cremains can be buried next to his first wife's in the family plot. Lange and her two best friends, played to perfection by Kathy Bates and Joan Allen, set out in a 1966 Bonneville and have a wonderfully wacky trip of it.

The production values were terrific. Each part of the country was given loving cinematographic attention. There was a fetching sound track. Most of all, the film shone with affection as this superb ensemble took us for a ride. The depth of their co-acting was amazing and true to the bone.

Dan D. Lion McCarty Cat had his second day outside, meeting up with Talkie, the very large, old, nearly toothless and completely clawless outside cat which resides across the street in our neighbor’s yard. There was a terrific din and Mick found the two at it. It was Dan D’s first serious fight. He came away unscathed but shaken and spent a large part of the remainder of the day hiding in the garage. I am so grateful his first battle was with Talkie! Hopefully he will continue to prevail in the inevitable fight for supremacy in his territory.

Mick offered the prayer at the close of the Gaia Meditation tonight.

2008-10-04

We had lovely weather today, the temperature topping out in the mid-seventies and the heavens sporting that intensely blue sky that comes only at harvest time. After Morning Offering Mick went to consult with one of his customers and then took off with Dan D. Lion McCarty Cat to the vet’s to get his outdoor shots. In the afternoon, Mick continued to work with the front-yard waterfall, which is being very stubborn about leaking. He got it going – again! Water gardens in the yard seem always to need adjustment, new pumps and maintenance.

Lorena spent the day finalizing The LOOP, after I read it through for copy errors early in the morning. Most unfortunately, Dan D. Lion anointed her entire LOOP folder box, a hitherto handsome carrying case for all of her correspondence with the prisoners. It only underscored the need to get this cat outdoors where he clearly belongs. After lunch Mick and I took him to the front porch, where Mick had placed his little “house” up high on the wood-rack. He set it on a large piece of thick plywood and stabilized it so Dan can sit out on his “porch” and survey his new domain.

Gary was working for L/L Research today and says he is now caught up on the vast backlog of e-mail he found when the power finally came back on. And Melissa created four loaves of Eggnog Bread from the leftover eggnog I’d made for the choir party Wednesday. She also re-sewed the cuff buttons to a couple of my new purple tops so that the sleeves do not hang down on my knuckles.

I spent my work day finishing the editing on The Alphabet Mosaics’ bibliography. I was glad to get that done! It is very picky work! In late afternoon I sat down with Romi and we went through the remaining scanning that needs doing. A couple of Dana's worksheets are too large for the book and they also happen to be poor copies, to which we no longer have the originals. So they shall have to be cut apart and reconstituted, element by element. This is also very picky work. Ro promised to get started on the scanning.

So we have an unavoidable delay on getting The Alphabet Mosaics to the printer. I will do my final read-through of the introductory text next week, and then put it aside until the Ro Man gets the rest of the material ready to include.

Lorena, Rebecca and little Reiko hit the road just before meditation, after the whole crew enjoyed Gary’s feast, prepared yesterday: barbecued chicken, curried rice and a cauliflower casserole. Romi had made some fruit dumplings a la Czeska for dessert, which topped off the meal nicely.

We enjoyed a silent meditation at the public meeting tonight after talking around the circle in our usual opening round-robin. I included the closing prayer to the Gaia Meditation when we ended the half-hour of our silent meditation. I am always impressed at the difference which being part of a group makes in my meditative experience. The group energy carries me deeper into the silence.

We all said good-night to little Dan D. before we went to bed. His tail is erect and he seems quite happy outdoors. This is a great blessing!

2008-10-03

Some days do not go as we plan! This was one of them for me. After Morning Offering, Mick and Gary set out on their Friday lawn care marathon. I was finishing my morning paper's puzzle when Mel called from downtown, needing a ride. She had brought her car in to be repaired, to a Saab repair shop in the west end of downtown Louisville. They expected to turn the car’s rotors by noon. However they found that more trouble lurked under the hood. So she could not simply wait for her car and drive out to Anchorage in late morning.

I went to pick her up, realizing that this was the perfect chance for us to continue right across the Ohio River to Clarksville, Indiana, where there is a particularly choice Goodwill shop. we'd talked last week about going there. So we had a successful search and I came away with plenty of purple and lavender tops for this winter. I could not find any pants or skirts in that color, so one more foraging trip remains before my Purple Winter is prepared.

As it happens, I had just gotten a call from Dr. J’s office when Mel called. They wanted me to pick up the MRI scan from Baptist East Hospital and have it ready for an appointment next week with the Spine Institute. The scan showed disc degeneration and pinched nerves, which is where the pain in my left arm and shoulders originates. Dr. J feels I am a good candidate for epidural cortisone treatments. These will keep the needed anti-inflammatory medicine in the local area and not coursing throughout my system.

Why they could not message the MRI to the Institute by e-mail I do not know.

So Mel wheeled me into the bowels of the hospital to Medical Records and I retrieved their CD copy of the scan. By this time it was after 2 p.m. We stopped to eat and Mel phoned to see if her Saab was ready. There was no joy at the mechanic’s! Her bill for repairing the car would be far more than she could afford. So all she could do today was go back to the shop, sit down with them and create a plan for working on the car in stages.

Unfortunately for getting back to the west end, the Saint James Court Art Fair is occurring this very weekend, in an area around Fourth Street. We needed to get to Seventh Street. It was a half-hour effort to get from First Street past Fourth! And then I had to go back across the same streets in order to get on the expressway back home. I made it to Camelot by 4:15 and by the time I had gotten the consignment tags off my new clothes, Mick was through with his maintenance for the day and proposed an early bath and date, since Romi and Lorena had suggested a dinner out together.

As I said, this was not the day I planned, although it certainly had its charms! Not for me to work on The Alphabet Mosaics today! In fact, I never even got to the Holly Journal, and missed chapel time completely. Some days are just like that! But it was a great feeling to help Mel out, plus i now have purple shirts and do not have to brave the trip to Baptist East Hospital solo. So all is very well.

Meanwhile, Lorena in the morning and Gary in the afternoon kept an eye out for the generator people. They arrived, finally, in mid-afternoon. Supposedly we were to be hooked up and good to go Wednesday. Things did not quite wind up, so they came back yesterday, but while one part worked, another part, a part which must be special-ordered, did not. Back to the drawing board! We won’t have a functioning generator until sometime next week when that part comes in.

Lorena spent her day working on the LOOP newsletter and got a rough draft ready by dinnertime. I will give it a look tomorrow and correct copy. then she'll be ready to print it out and mail it to our 'send' list.

Mick and I had a delicious, life-enhancing energy exchange and then rejoined the rest of the party. Gary, Mel, Romi, Lorena, Mick and I went to Tokyo Restaurant, where I had sashimi, Gary and Lorena had sushi and the rest had more orthodox Western selections of cooked food. It was a lovely evening! As we sat enjoying our full stomachs and satisfied palates, we shared the Gaia Meditation. I offered the closing prayer.

2008-10-02

Happy Autumn! This is my first sweater-and-socks day! It was also the first day this season that Mick has started off his work day with a jacket – in honor of the Louisville group, we’ll call it My Morning Jacket day!

After Morning Offering Mick started in on his complex day, which he polished off in great style. As fall rolls in, there is less straightforward mowing to do and more gutter cleaning, patio restoring, gardening and other non-mowing chores. He did, however, mow two large yards today on top of all the other stuff.

In the morning I caught up on some e-mail. I pass along a request from Terry H of Taipei concerning the Puri district of Orissa in eastern India, on the Bay of Bengal. The VHP (Vishwa Hindu Parashad) has determined to kill all Christians in that area, according to Terry. He sent many sad photos of the destruction there. Let us all spare a prayer for the martyrs of Puri.

I also received an eye-opening letter from a woman called Mary-Kay Gamel, a Professor of classics and theater at the University of California. She had a lot of things to say about what an abysmal person John McCain is. I realize that people can say anything. But this woman gives her address and e-mail, which is mkgamel@ucsc.edu. I found her words chilling. If you are interested, I am sure she will be glad to send you a copy of her letter.

Ba sent in her provisional OK on the final-final Table of Contents for The Aaron/Q’uo Dialogues, so I can go forward with sending the final revised manuscript to Hampton Roads when I get it from Jude. She said it might be a few days in coming, as her work schedule is very tight right now.

Lee B wrote in, asking about a slew of speakers appearing at a UFO convention in the bay area around San Francisco, where he resides. I replied that I knew only two of them to comment on, and they both were less than stellar speakers, and suggested that he come to Laughlin next February instead, where I will be speaking at the International UFO Congress 2009.

In latte morning I began working on the bibliographical entries in The Alphabet Mosaics. This is painstaking work. Dana’s form was off, technical stuff like a colon where the comma goes and then a comma where the colon goes. Every entry needs that correction. She also switched the order of the place of publication and the publisher and that needs changing every time. in over half of her entries, an item is missing completely because she ran out of time, having an appointment with Larger Life. She has three solid pages of references, and I am about 1/3 through with the entries now. I hope to finish them by Saturday afternoon, when I have an appointment with Romi to work on the book.

Romi was Dana’s good friend, visiting her frequently and coming as close as he ever has in this life to forming a formal relationship with her. He has helped me tremendously in this project by doing a good deal of scanning, and I believe he will need to do some more. By Saturday afternoon, I will make it my business to know exactly what is still not scanned. Fortunately Dana left a very precise Table of Contents to guide us.

Gary was at the L/L Research helm today, working with large numbers of e-mail. He was also extremely helpful all day, being the go-to person for the workmen who were here to install a generator for Camelot. It is a large expense, but after losing our food multiple times in power outages, we finally decided to get one. Living in a virtual forest, our power goes out quite frequently.

After the Gaia Meditation, at which Mick offered the closing prayer, Mick and I watched the vice-presidential debate. I was embarrassed for Governor Palin, whose experience is quite limited. For some reason she kept referring to that experience. It was a poor tactic. I must say that Biden and Palin were both far less cogent than Obama was. I think Biden won the debate, but he did not distinguish himself. Obama has an unusual ability to speak from the heart while losing no intellectual content.

Lorena L and her sister, Rebecca, are due here but as I prepared for bedtime, she had not yet arrived. She is coming here to work on the next issue of L/L Research’s prisoner newsletter, The LOOP (Law of One for Prisoners) and will stay through our meditation Saturday night. Rebecca is here to baby-sit Reiko, Lorena's darling daughter, stll less than a year old.

2008-10-01

Fall weather continued today as we welcomed October. After Morning Offering, Mick took off for a very full day of working for Jim’s Lawn Service. I found that Steve M had sent me back his suggestions for the session summaries in the Table of Contents of The Aaron/Q’uo Dialogues. I took the morning to work on editing them and finalized them by lunchtime. Later in the day, Steve sent in three more suggestions, all good, and I think we can now declare that all the writing on A/Q is done! I asked Jude to switch out the old TOC for this one, and send me a new manuscript so that I can send it on the Hampton Roads with a request for HR editor Bob F to decide if they will publish our work.

In the afternoon Gary helped me to make eggnog, from scratch, for our choir’s “Christmas Party” tonight. Since we’re having the blessing of the animals on Sunday and the service will be outside, the choir will not sing, so we spent this evening practicing Christmas music – hence the party. The eggnog came out creamy and yummy and we enjoyed it! I have a good bit left over, but luckily I also have a nice recipe for Eggnog Bread, so we can use it up and freeze a nice couple of loaves of sweet breakfast bread for our upcoming Christmas morning meal.

I spent the latter part of the afternoon going to yet another doctor’s appointment, this one for a bone density scan. I will get all these tests explained to me when Dr. J. collects them. She promised to give me a call.

After a quick bath I went to choir practice. We will do a lot of Renaissance music this year, which is fun. Mick brought the eggnog over at the end of practice, and we enjoyed the party together. There was a wonderful cheese ball, my favorite nosh of the night. We came home just in time for the Gaia Meditation, at which I sang the closing prayer.

2008-09-30

We awoke to our first true autumn day, with a high of only 70 F and golden sun. After Morning Offering Dianne S and I went to Images Salon for haircuts and, for me, a facial. What a treat! On the way home we stopped at a discount shoe house, where I looked for a pair of purple dress shoes in vain. However I came home with tennies with nice purple touches. I shall prowl around on line for the dress shoes.

In the afternoon, I opened The Alphabet Mosaics and copied one of Dana’s bibliography entries in a letter to Ian, who is my best authority for all matters of English usage, as he has produced at least a dozen books for his wife, his sister and me. If Dana’s form is considered OK, my job will only be to fill in the many blanks in her references. If not I will need to re-do every entry. We shall see what tomorrow brings.

I heard from both Eli E and JoyousChee. They really like my series on hierarchies and will publish them in their zines. Eli’s Both Sides Now is an excellent and cutting edge printed quarterly which he sends out to about 300 people. I do not know what number of hits JC’s e-zine, www.cosmiclighthouse.com, gets per issue. It is very gratifying to think of the pieces being used beyond our ‘send’ list and whatever circulation UPI receives. I’ll continue the series next week.

I gratefully received Romi’s send of a couple of recent photos of Dana Redfield, which he took during his visit to Moab shortly before she died in 2007, and sent them on to Vara. She is creating a bio and author photo section for Dana’s mosaics and wisdoms, which her e-zine, www.planetlightworker.com, will publish over time, one mosaic and wisdom per issue. Now I need to come up with a decent biography of her.

Rho M sent an interesting piece of information on fresh fruit. Fruit is stamped or labeled these days with numbers. If the number stamped on your fruit begins with an 8, it has been genetically modified. If it begins with a 4, it has been grown with standard fertilizing and other spraying practices. Only the fruit stamped with a series of numbers beginning with 9 are organically grown. So look for nines when you’re buying fresh fruit!

Kathy R sent a wonderful piece by Birkmeier called The Birk Economic Recovery Plan. It suggests that, instead of paying the trillions of dollars for which the current legislation is asking congress in order to bail out these failing financial companies, with their greedy and foolish practices, the government distribute the same money, equally, to every citizen over 18 in the USA. That would come to a bit over $250,000.00 PER PERSON, or over half a million dollars per couple.

Off the top, the government would save 30%, in the form of taxes on the money which the citizens would pay.

We the people could pay off our credit card debt, mortgages and other bills. Or we could save the money for our kids’ college. We would have solvency from the bottom up. And the greedy and foolish business practices of the companies involved would be rewarded as the free market should reward such, by being allowed to fail. There are plenty of other financial companies whose business practices have stood up to this crisis well. And with half a million dollars in the bank for the common married couple, who would need a loan anyway?

I tell you, it’s brilliant! Of course it will never happen. It makes way too much sense!

In all, I sent 13 e-mails to various folks before Mick called bath time.

After our bath, Romi came over so that we could fete him for his birthday. We went to his favorite place around here, Applebee’s, for the celebration. It was a very pleasant evening. After a good meal we returned to Camelot for the Gaia Meditation, with Ro offering the closing prayer.