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.