Camelot Journal of L/L Research

Blog Transfer Announcement, January 11, 2009

2009-01-11T17:41:00.003-05:00

As of January 1, 2009, the Camelot Journal of L/L Research moves to www.bring4th.org, the spiritual community and activism site of L/L Research. To view my Camelot Journal blog entries from now on, please go to http://www.bring4th.org/members.php?uid=72. The Avalon Journal will also be moved to B4 in the near future.

To view the archives of these Journals prior to 2009, please go to http://www.llresearch.org/carla_niche.aspx.

I thank the blogger.com site for hosting my blogs for the last three years and more! It has been commodious and comfortable here. However it is a great joy for all of us at L/L Research to see www.bring4th.org launched, and I encourage you to hop on over and check out the site. You can join us to blog, use the forums and live chat and you will find many other ways as well to interact with other seekers who enjoy the L/L Research offerings such as the Law of One and other Confederation material.

To check out our archive site, go to www.llresearch.org. There you can find the Law of One sessions, a dozen books or more, over 1500 channeling transcripts and other goodies.

L/L xxx -

Carla L. Rueckert-McCarty
L/L Research

L/L Research is a non-profit organization dedicated to metaphysical and paranomral research. We archive and publish information that we hope may be helpful to those who are seeking in a spiritual sense. Carla L. Rueckert-McCarty is the long time channel for the L/L Research group. Their channeled books include The Law of One, Books I - V, also known as The Ra Material, and her written books include A Wanderer's Handbook and A Channeling Handbook. Her column, "A Small Medium at Large", may be found on www.upi.com in the Religion and Spirituality section. The L/L Research archive website is www.llresearch.org.

2009-01-10

2009-01-11T08:00:00.002-05:00

Thunder awoke me early in the dark and by the time I arose it was drizzling steadily. I came down to find Lorena up and working on the LOOP (Law of One Prisoners) Newsletter. It is her fifth issue and the beginning of her second year with the L/L Research prison ministry. She has done a wonderful job! And I think this is her best issue yet. I began the morning’s work by consulting with her over format and doing a bit of “translation” from “Ra-Speak” to the vernacular for part of her issue.

I responded to Ian’s request for the dates of the third Channeling Intensive, as I am beginning now to send him edited transcripts from that Gathering. I also talked with him about unifying gender for Channeling Circle 8’s story.

Gary came up with a large sheaf of items to work on with me, and we spent a companionable couple of hours, before and after lunch, hashing out issues having to do with what content stays on our archive site now that B4 is up and running, and establishing a general policy for such decisions in the future. We got that worked out well, I think, quite logically.

Our biggest question was, what content having to do with L/L Gatherings goes on llresearch and what goes on B4. We decided that future and present material goes on B4. Then when the Gathering is over and we are collecting any transcripts or finalizing the curriculum for that Gathering, it goes on the archive site.

I finally had my chapel time in mid-afternoon and wrote my Holly Journal entry. Then it was time for my first Live Chat on B4. I had been concerned mostly that I could keep up with the questions in such a way as to make it clear to whom I was talking and then to make it clear when I was typing for a while and when I was finished. I got better at that as time went on. It was delightful and I really enjoyed the time.

Gary was by my side for this first attempt to work the software, for well he knows my status with computers in general: challenged! He was a great help, and I believe from now on I can do this by myself, which is a great feeling. Steve E., webmaster for B4, acted as my emcee, feeding me the questions one at a time, or trying to do so! Sometimes my follow-ups to a previous question intruded on the next question. But I believe we caught all the questions eventually. I will repeat this next week. I am thinking about making it a weekly occurrence. We’ll see how popular the offering is after a month of trying this out.

Romi invited Lorena and me to dine at Volare, one of my very favorite restaurants. We had such a good time and dined royally! Salmon Crostini – we split it three ways – was followed by seafood bisque and then both Lorena and I got their sea bass, which was incredibly good! What a meal! Homage to the chef! And many thanks to the Ro Man, who truly fed my foolish love of eating out in the best possible way!

We got back to find Gary, Mick and John Daniel waiting for us, and began the meeting forthwith. After a good round-robin talk, I tuned and we had a good channeling session. Gary’s question for tonight was on the dynamic between light and dark and how it seems that as we progress towards positive polarity, we get more powerful temptations from the service-to-self polarity. It was an interesting question and I look forward to editing that transcript when it comes back and seeing what the Q’uo principle said. I offered the Gaia Meditation prayer at the end of the session.

We conversed for a while most enjoyably after the session. Gary loves caves, and JD has one for him near his home which is no longer open to the public, with more formations by far, he says, than Mammoth Cave. I see a trip to visit Daniel in Gary’s near future! Finally Romi and John Daniel had to leave. JD had a two-hour drive back to Bowling Green, so we got him set up with a big mug of coffee to keep him awake and safe on his way home.

2009-01-09

2009-01-10T08:16:00.004-05:00

Mick awoke me at 8:00 a.m. in Fox and Steve’s lovely bedroom, the sunrise still pink and orange on the horizon. We came downstairs to find the couple preparing our breakfast – homemade waffles served with their own blueberries in a homemade compote, homemade cherry preserves, butter and maple syrup. They also produced juice, coffee and sausage and we had a most enjoyable meal together before going outside to see their new construction.

Steve has built everything in his home except the foundations. It runs to three levels now as well as including a large garage and Steve’s woodworking shop, over which extension is a full story of storage for building supplies. He has also created a greenhouse attached to the other side of the house. Now he is projecting out from their kitchen forward to create a full dining room off the kitchen and below it, a large studio for Fox’s weaving. She creates beautiful fabrics on her loom and in latter years has become increasingly able to find catalog and store outlets for her lovely handmade work.

Melissa was in her element as the couple showed us around, asking all kinds of questions and sharing from her vast research. She and Fox spent a good bit of time looking at her loom and materials while I went with Steve and Mick to see Steve’s growing collection of indigenous rock. As he’s dug out for these new additions to their home, when he comes across rock he harvests and sorts it. He has in mind – after the current projects are finished – a large area of patio connecting all the elements of the home. By the time he gets to that, he will have all the materials he needs!

The H’s are a very inspiring couple. Good and true, they met each other during their college years and from that day forward, they have been together. Eventually they married and had children, two beautiful babies whom Fox home-schooled. I remember the day she had to let them go to enter public high school. She said, “I am going to miss them so much!” In this day and age, a family who treasures their kids and wants to keep them close is a rarity.

The family now runs to six grandkids, which is what is driving Steve to build the dining room, and theirs is an extremely loving family, geographically and emotionally close and supportive. The life they have built is beautiful in so many ways! I admire them tremendously and it is such fun to be with them as they share the bounty of their farm and the sweetness of their personalities and lives with us!

We drove home to Camelot through warming temperatures and brilliant sunshine, with a pale full moon to guide us and mackerel clouds drifting by. When we got back, Lorena L, who had come down from Chicago last night late in order to work over the weekend on the next issue of L/L Research’s prisoner newsletter, The LOOP (Law of One – Prisoners, which she creates, had joined Gary in the office. The atmosphere was festive, with great music playing.

Mel caravaned with me to Bachman Subaru, where the parts which our encounter with the dog on our trip to Nebraska had destroyed had come in. On our way home we stopped by the cleaners to drop off my sweater, on which I had dropped tomato soup last week. They handed it back to me saying that they had no solution which would remove that stain. Rats! It is a favorite old garment of mine!

We also stopped by Ben Franklin, where we shored up our supply of giftwrapping items which last Christmas had depleted, all on good sale. We even scored six more trays for use when we have large L/L Research Gatherings. Now I think we have enough trays to serve 35 people. That’s a good feeling! And I found four tree ornaments for 1/16th their original price! That’s my first Christmas purchase for Christmas 2009!

Mick made a run up to Avalon to dump a big load of storm debris which he had cleared for a customer yesterday while I came upstairs to write my journals and have my chapel time – a late hour for that, but we were off schedule for the best of reasons! When he got back, my beloved Stanley Outback was ready to pick up and he took me there to collect it.

I spent the rest of the work day editing on Channeling Circle 11, the question for which was about the spiritual use of a sense of humor. I got within three pages of finishing that before bath time. So far it contains very good work by the new channels! I also collected a nifty, simple recipe for Honey Mustard Chicken.

As I came downstairs, Mel was just leaving, so we had our hugs and goodbyes. After Mick and I bathed we enjoyed a great date together. We were stunned by the energy we raised with seemingly no effort. I looked into his eyes and said, “Incredible!” he replied, “Miraculous! Thank you, Lord!” Feeling the best I have all day, I joined Mick downstairs and thought to join Gary and Lorena as well, but Gary had taken Lorena out for dinner, so we enjoyed a solitary late supper and then I offered the closing prayer at the Gaia Meditation.

2009-01-08

2009-01-09T13:31:00.003-05:00

My day started early, as I awoke early and arose instead of rolling over for another hour of snoozing. I wanted to have time to write my journals, have chapel time and write Steve E a thank-you letter for his marvelous and ongoing work on B4. I got that done in good time to come downstairs and enter in to the regular morning schedule.

After Morning Offering Mick set out on a run up to Avalon with the harvest of storm debris from yesterday’s JLS (Jim's Lawn Service) work with clearing downed trees for a customer. I caught up with correspondence with Ian, our archive site web guy, and then tackled the editing of Channeling Circle 8, from Channeling Intensive Three held last October. I found the story that the circle members channeled quite interesting. The only changes I made were to unify the tense of the story and the sex of the main character.

After lunch I enjoyed a manicure with my nail tech, Bethany, making good inroads now on my ingrown fingernails. As I grow older, those nails are ever more prone to roll right into my fingers on both sides of their nail beds, so I have recently upped my manicures from one a month to twice monthly, to very good effect.

Gary and I had made a date with Steve E, webmaster for B4, for a practice session for me in preparation for the live chat session scheduled for 3:00 p.m. EST on Saturday. Never have we been so glad for a rehearsal! My software balled up and sulked in SO many ways! Before the session ended we had installed Firefox freeware to replace my old Outlook and fiddled with the settings on my version of B4’s chat rooms site.

We also decided that Steve would not only moderate during our chat time of 3-5:00, but also emcee, placing himself between me and the people tuning in. I have a tendency to focus down on what I am doing, and have not learned at all well yet how to expand my awareness to multitask. Steve will make up for my lack by feeding me one question at a time.

After I left the meeting, Gary continued to work with Steve for some time, and I believe we’re good to go now for the Saturday session. I am jazzed and looking forward to the time. If it goes well I shall make it a weekly event.

I’ve limited my exposure to the general public in the last few years so that I can accomplish creative projects, and that’s a good decision. But now I can be more accessible, and give back to those who support me so beautifully, for two hours a week. And I think that, too, is a very good decision.

Melissa, Mick and I then drove down to Perryville, Kentucky, in Boyle County, as the night came and the weather turned frosty. We bore pizza and homemade mulled apple cider as gifts for Fox and Steve H, with whom we had planned to watch the National Championship Bowl. The drive down was delightful, as Mick had bought Yusuf Islam’s (formerly Cat Stevens’) new album, “Another Cup of Tea”. I loved every note!

We got there in good time for the game, which we enjoyed in their fairly newly built media room. Mick’s alma mater for his master’s degree in early childhood education, the University of Florida, won handily over Oklahoma in a defensively powered, relatively low-scoring game. It was so great to watch it with good friends!

Since we were not in a position to make a Gaia Meditation offering tonight, Mick and I simply passed the peace during a time-out break! We said our night-time prayers in our snug room in the same fairly new addition to their house while Mel tucked herself in downstairs in the H’s other guest room. Mick and I fell asleep with Venus shining in the window, blessing our slumber!

2009-01-07

2009-01-08T07:48:00.002-05:00

As the cold rain fell, and fell, and fell, and the city skies were pearly-white, Mick and I made our Morning Offering. Mick had already gone out, sprinkling calcium chloride at the day care center at St. Luke’s and on the three customers’ walks who have subscribed to that service this winter, while I wrote my Camelot Journal entry for yesterday.

I did a bit of personal e-mail and batted back the junk mail. Then I had my chapel time and asked Holly what the ER experience yesterday was all about. Hollt's answer is worth repeating here. She said,

"Living a life in Christ is a challenge indeed. If you follow all the injunctions of the Bible for diet and so forth, that is one kind of challenge – but not the challenge which cuts to the heart of the Christian injunction to love the Lord and your neighbor as yourself.

"Sometimes, the person one is most challenged to love turns out to be the self. When one is ill, helpless, vulnerable or uncomfortable, temptations arise that are a real challenge. There is the temptation to criticize the self for being in such a condition. There is the temptation to lose heart. There is the temptation to feel all alone. There is the temptation towards self-pity. These constitute a challenge which only a seasoned disciple of Christ can encounter with the knowledge that all is well and a prayer of thankfulness that such a challenge has been offered.

"When challenges of this kind come, accept them in gratitude and rest in peace of mind, knowing that the Lord is with you every moment of the way."

Meanwhile Mick manhandled the Christmas tree through the front door after gently laying away our homemade tree-top angel, our many ornaments, each with a story to tell of who gave it to us and when, and the lights that had wreathed the tree.

We went at 11:30 for a conversation with our trust officer, Doris S. Over a delicious lunch we talked over strategies and concerns. It was an excellent conversation. Doris will continue to lower our exposure to Exxon, with whose ethics we are in disagreement. We also will continue to look for non-equity sources of good investment for Don’s legacy to us. That trust has been our go-to for special needs for 25 years now, and we hope to nurture it well into the future.

When we returned to Camelot I came upstairs to my bower to edit another recent channeling session, this one responding to a question from Gary on the difference, speaking in terms of energy expenditure, of channeling radiance of being and being radiant. It was a fascinating session for me, and also contained an interesting Q and A on illness and the spiritual principles concerning it.

After a good warm bath for Mick and me to toast our cold toes and fingers and enjoy being clean – a metaphysical event for me as well as a physical one – I was off to choir practice at St. Luke’s. We had a wonderful rehearsal, starting the New Year with lots of new music for Epiphany, that wonderful liturgical season of light. I swam in the music like an otter! Whee! And I got to sing alto all night, a singular treat!

When I returned home we offered the Gaia Meditation – Mick offered the closing prayer - and then had Gary’s Christmas. He’s been gone for all previous 2008 occasions to open presents, so we had our own ceremony quite late. Gary gave me the best present ever: a certificate good for his detailing Stanley Outback! He’s superb at doing this, and Stanley will soon shine! Mick received one gadget which lets him listen to his beloved iPod in the car and another one for the iPod which I did not understand – but Mick did and he was thrilled!

We gave Gary a gift card to the nicest near shopping center, where he promised to spend it on clothes and books, and a couple of pairs of flannel-lined jeans for his camping excursions. And he exclaimed over Mel’s stocking, which was amazingly generous, filled with three candles for his baths, lock de-icer and all manner of candies, nuts and fruit. Merry Christmas, again!

2008-01-06

2009-01-07T08:23:00.003-05:00

While the skies wept over chilly Kentucky, I spent my morning writing my journals, having chapel time and rewriting a paragraph in my UPI article on Chris Jordan to include more places to see his photographic images. Then I had an early lunch, as at 1:00 p.m. I was due downtown at Norton’s Hospital for a new procedure to me, an epidural in which anti-inflammatory medicine is placed directly into the neck area. I have recently had a good deal of nerve pain in that area and down my shoulders and arms.

Unfortunately I thought that the procedure was to take place at The Spine Institute, and I arrived there and waited for half an hour before the receptionist realized that my doctor was not at the Institute today. She called me up to investigate and I told her that I was there for an epidural. She said that they did not give them there but at a hospital. A record search showed that the appointment had been made at Norton’s. They kindly called over to Norton’s for me to explain the foul-up to them and Mick and I searched out the place I was to go in the rambling Norton’s campus. Thank heavens for wheel chairs! I would never have made the long trek on foot.

Once there the nurse spent time getting my health history – it is complicated and lengthy – and prepping me for the epidural. The procedure went well and I liked Dr. Morris, who has been doing this procedure for 19 years with a perfect record. The problem came when my blood pressure would not go back down after the procedure. Morris sent me to Norton Hospital's emergency room. By now it was after 3:00.

It was a wet and sloppy day on Louisville streets, and one ambulance after another rolled in while Mick and I waited. All of these cases were more urgent than mine, and so they went in ahead of us. Hours sauntered slowly by. It got dark. Eventually I suggested that we get something to eat, since once I was called back for treatment, food would not be allowed. Mick got a cafeteria meal for us both.

At 7:30 the nurse said that he had prepared a bed for me in the aisle of the treatment rooms, because he hated to see me in the waiting room so long. Back Mick and I went. We had a great view of the action of a downtown ER. For each patient, a different piece of ungainly equipment rolled by and was used. Each machine sounded a different tune, one like a harmonica playing a five-note tune, another dinging, another clanging. We spent time speculating on the nature of each pile of metal bells and whistles.

My favorite patient during this period was a very large, older woman of color whose opulent flesh overflowed her treatment bed. She had a marvelously fashioned, highly bouffant wig on, or mostly on. When she moved her head, the wig stayed where it was. The effect was fetching!

The ER doctors kept me until 10:00 p.m., giving me oxygen and medicine to lower the blood pressure that had landed me there and taking my blood pressure again and again. It came down from 230 to 200, and they finally agreed that I could go home as long as I made an appointment to follow up with my family doctor.

I already have an appointment with Dr. Aboud, my GP, on January 20th, and it is likely that I could not get an earlier appointment than that, so I easily agreed. It was never so sweet to see Camelot. Our Christmas lights were up for one last night as the Feast of Epiphany comes and Christmas’s twelve days end.

Mick and I offered the Gaia Meditation there in the ER hallway, since that’s where we were at 9:00. However the prayer was never completed at the close, because suddenly there was a rumpus in one of the treatment rooms with a foul-mouthed woman screaming her lungs out, demanding that she not be touched and accusing the staff of improprieties. Mick and I opened our eyes, looked at each other and, over the din, said, “Peace!”

I prayed, "Holly, I thank you for the gift of this day. When it is convenient, I would love to know the nature of this gift! Lay it on me!" The attitude of gratitude always makes things better, and I look forward to Holly's eventual explanation!

2009-01-05

2009-01-06T07:58:00.002-05:00

I started this cloudy, warm day by composing ten questions and answers for the St. Luke’s choir’s upcoming Trivial Pursuit Night in the area of literature. They are holding the event smack dab across our usual Saturday night public meeting time so I cannot attend, but I can help chairperson Kathy get ready for the event!

I slept too late this morning to write my journals before waking Mick, so I spent a part of the morning having my chapel time and making entries in the Camelot Journal and the Holly Journal. Then I started writing an article on Chris Jordan for my difference-maker series on UPI’s www.religionandspirituality.com blog site, where I blog as A Small Medium At Large. I finished the rough draft in time to make it to a doctor’s appointment at 3:00 p.m. and tidied it up when I returned.

It felt so much like spring when I was outside! Recent rains have perked up the grasses and it smelled green and hopeful! Dan D. Lion was there when I got back, ready for lots of pats on my way inside from the car. He's thriving in the wild, huskier and more powerful by far than when he was an inside cat.

I also let Doris know by e-mail that Mick prefers to meet for our business appointment at her office rather than at a restaurant as we had originally planned.

Mick arrived home at dusk after putting in a hard-working day splitting tree trunk pieces for a customer who wanted her storm debris turned into firewood. He collected the debris that was too small to split and took it up to Avalon to dump where Melissa had marked for it to go, at the edge of the access road. He was so glad to get that big job done! Now he’s ready to tackle another, even bigger job at St. Luke’s, more downed trees from the big windstorm last fall.

We enjoyed a long hot bath together before coming upstairs for a date, which was just lovely. Then we had supper and offered the Gaia Meditation, with Mick praying at the close.

2009-01-04

2009-01-05T08:04:00.005-05:00

While the skies lowered and the thermometer topped 60 F, Mick and I had a restful Sabbath. I enjoyed a second Sunday of Christmas and the choir sang a carol by Hector Berlioz, "The Shepherd’s Farewell", a sweet piece, for the anthem.

Mick took me home to our newly sparkling house and we sat down to lunch while viewing a singularly beautiful movie, Flashbacks of a Fool. The excellence of the film did not lie in the theme of its screenplay, which dealt with the well worn tale of regret while looking back at a wasted talent and life. Rather, its excellence lay in the symmetry and unhurried storytelling of the script, and its seamless realization by the key character, played as an adult by Daniel Craig and as a teenager by Harry Eden.

The surrounding ensemble was entirely competent. Mark Strong, Olivia Williams and Claire Forlani offered excellent support to Craig’s and Eden’s joint portrayal of Joe Scot, a person wooed from meaningful living by his own physical beauty. And the cinematography was spellbinding, lovingly caressing all at which it looked. Songs by David Bowie, Roxy Music and Scott Walker underscored the movement of the piece seamlessly. I cannot say that the film edified or enlightened, but as a work of art it was perfect. I loved the film and awoke from its ending as from a lovely and enchanted dream.

Our second feature was Martin Scorsese’s look at a recent Rolling Stones concert tour, Shine A Light. What a great romp! It was terrific to see the performances, the four durable rockers supported by excellent, compelling turns by Jack White, Christine Aguilera and Buddy Guy. The entire cast had the best time!

What are the odds that four teenagers – Mick Jagger, Ronny Woods, Keith Richards and Charlie Watts – would live into their sixties with full heads of hair and not an extra pound on their frames? Their youthful physiques made the look of the show eternal and iconic.

I have been fascinated by the perfection of Jagger’s concentration and focus as an artist ever since seeing him, a couple of decades ago, in The Rolling Stones at the Imax. I saw that film half a dozen times. Jagger and his cohorts may seem as though they are playing onstage, as indeed they are, but there is not a note off-key, not a beat out of place and each song's playing is as tight as a drum.

Jagger continues in this film to amaze me with the precision of his art. He is a delight to see, not simply in terms of entertaining but also, for the eye of a former back-up singer in the seventies, in terms of the razor-sharp edge of his performance. As he skips, runs and gyrates, he brings a rhythmic energy to the music that explicates rather than accompanies. His lyrics are crisp and clean, each note accurately placed, sensitively styled and in the middle of the pitch.

Scorsese manages in a few economic scenes, moreover, to capture the manic spontaneity of rock and roll as he fruitlessly tries to find out what songs the lads are planning to play. His humor is entirely self-deprecating and devoid of egotism, and the embroidery of the backstage angst adds the perfect foil to the singing.

Five Bic flicks to this grand, engaging and generous concert film.

We called Mick’s Mom and enjoyed a late supper before the Gaia Meditation, at which Mick offered the closing prayer.

2009-01-03

2009-01-04T07:47:00.002-05:00

The skies lowered as the temperature climbed and we had a warm, pearly-gray day of it. We slept late and made our Morning Offering before Mick cleaned the kitchen and did his round of errands while I came upstairs and promptly fell asleep. After the impromptu nap, I got my journals written and had a good chapel time before lunch.

After lunch Mick went to a customer’s place to replace some shingles which had blown off the roof of her 200-year-old farmhouse. I edited the transcript of the channeling session from December 13, 2008 which transcriber Aaron T had sent in.

We have been offered an advertising opportunity by BBS Radio (www.bbsradio.com) which airs our channeling sessions weekly on Saturday nights, and I sent the offer along to Mick and Gary so we could discuss it.

Romi came over to work on the computers. He had some frustrating moments, but in the end, he said things were coming along on his upgrade of our book-keeper’s computer. He also has had a failure on his first attempt to scan Dana Redfield’s appendices for The Alphabet Mosaics into a finished document. He can send me the text portions of her appendices to edit, but the images changed size when he put them into a finished document. So he will start over on them, scanning the images another way.

Mick and I welcomed Daniel and Romi for silent meditation after supper. We had an excellent talk around the circle, and then a very good half-hour meditation. I am always able to meditate more deeply in a group, carried by the combined energy of the sitting circle. At the end of that meditation I offered the Gaia Meditation’s prayer for peace in our hearts and peace in the world.

Afterwards, Daniel sat and read Chapter 8 of Secrets of the UFO, which reports on three hypnotic regressions of subjects who tell of coming to Earth as wanderers, while Romi opened his Christmas presents from Mick, Melissa and me and Mick did laundry, getting the house back in order after the Craver-Rueckerts’ visit. We all said good-night around 11:00 p.m.

2009-01-02

2009-01-03T11:21:00.002-05:00

Since the Craver-Rueckerts had expressed the desire to leave the house at 7:00 a.m., I was thrilled to have awakened, quite naturally, early enough to have my chapel time and write my journal entries before going downstairs to fix some coffee and hot water for tea at 6:45. However no one stirred. Finally, knowing just how crowded their schedule was when they returned to Falls Church, I knocked on Tommy and Mary’s door at 7:30.

When the family surfaced around 8:00, they decided to skip breakfast at Artemisia (drat!) and get on the road. I waved them off and found Mick just awakening, so we snuggled for a while and went right into our usual schedule. After Morning Offering, Mick set out on a full day’s work with storm debris, clearing a large, messy back acre for a customer. He took one load of debris to Avalon and he and Melissa dumped it where she needed it for erosion control off the edge of the access road and into the ravine. He spent the rest of the day splitting big logs for his customer and stacking them for her use. He still has another day of work to do there.

I came up to my bower office, the happy, chilly sunshine pouring into the room, and promptly fell asleep. I roused briefly and starting to update my to-do list but sank inadvertently into slumber once again, awakened only by hunger. After lunch I repeated the routine, spending some work time in napping twice. However I did finish my to-do list, which runs to one and a half pages single-spaced. Now I merely have to accomplish each task!

Gary asked me to look over his announcement to our full e-mailing list about our launch of www.bring4th.org, and I spent a most pleasant hour tweaking his work. Gary has a tremendous sense of humor, light and playful, and so my goal was to shape up the letter while retaining his whimsical style. He came upstairs when he received my edit and thanked me for doing just that, so I am satisfied that I did not quench his wonderful style.

I hope everyone will come aboard B4 and register, surf around with the forums and in general settle in to our L/L Research extended community. Our hope is to provide a good meeting place for people who, in their own environments, feel somewhat isolated and have no one with whom to talk about their interests.

I have set up a tentative date for live chat on January 10th, a week from now. If webmaster Steve can finish getting that software set up by then, we’ll have an open conversation. It’s something I have wanted to offer for a long time.

We have received a good many donations in the week between Christmas and New Year’s, and I thank all of those who were so generous! We are close to halfway to our goal for this year, a really good start.

We also received news today that Peter Schiffer, the publisher of the Law of One series, has died. He was always adamant about retaining all rights to our work and it has been a sad hassle since he never wished to do things we wanted to do with the work, like republish it in mass-market format for store racks, or combine all the volumes in one master-volume. Perhaps now the company will release its grip on our work! That would be marvelous.

After Mick returned home at dusk and we bathed together, we came upstairs for a lovely date. As we celebrate our 28th year of being lovers and friends, the energy between us continues to climb and intensify. This defies both our natural aging process and the popular cultural concept of passion that must cool with time. It’s a beautiful thing, and I attribute it to two things.

Firstly, Mick never asks me for a date unless things between us are clear and positive, unshadowed by issues or hurt feelings.

Secondly, we are very conscious of the sacred nature of sexual sharing, and are present, not only with each other but also with the Creator, as we come together. It adds up to wonderful, joyous fun. Thank you Lord, and thank you, Mick, my dreamboat forever!

Mick pried me out of the afterglow to have a late supper. I offered the closing prayer at the Gaia Meditation tonight.

2009-01-01

2009-01-02T06:13:00.003-05:00

Happy New Year! Mick and I enjoyed having Tommy join us for a late Morning Offering. For the hymn, Tommy got out his guitar and we sang “Down to Earth like a Dove” together. It felt so good to sing with my li'l bro!

I made a streusel coffeecake – thanks, Tom C, for the recipe – for the assembled, who joined Mick and me throughout the next couple of hours. Ted was the last one up, surfacing at 11:30 or so. There was half a coffeecake left, after everyone else had had all they wanted, and I was amazed to see it all disappear! It brought me a vivid flash of how different my attitude towards food is from a mother feeding a 16-year-old son! I think in terms of cooking for a week. Mary must think in terms of cooking enough for today, she hopes!

Our day flowed effortlessly from there. Melissa spent her work time today at the computer, doing research and e-mail. Gary joined her at the L/L helm around lunchtime and worked until late into the evening.

Mick settled in with the generous array of football bowls at 1:00 and enjoyed the games all the rest of the day when he was not cleaning up after us all in the kitchen or staging dinner. He was a happy man!

I enjoyed hanging with the kids and Mary in the morning, and spent the afternoon with Gary up in my office, getting further educated on www.bring4th.org, our new sister site to www.llresearch.org. I learned how to make a forum entry – I chose the 2012 forum since I wanted to mention the upcoming 2012-oriented gathering this April – and gave a link to my two Mackinac Island speeches on 2012 at “A Time of Awakening in August 2007.

We all came together for a dinner of Wimmer’s Wieners, which we brought back from Nebraska, mashed potatoes, white chili and a big salad. Mick put that all together, and again, thanks to Ted’s appetite, the chili and the wieners were all polished off! Ted is a slender young man who tops out at 5’ 8”, so he clearly has the proverbial hollow leg. I must say that Tommy and Mary’s three children are exceptionally fun and good to know, bright as new pennies and full of interests and gifts. It has been terrific catching up with Rosie, EJ and Ted.

Christiana Rose is in her freshman year in college now, while Theodore Thomas is in his junior year in high school and Emily Jean is in her eighth grade year. They truly do Tommy and Mary proud! And they all happen to be beautiful of face and form. As Melissa said when she was preparing to leave late in the evening for Avalon, “You are a remarkable family!” I am so grateful that Mary Craver said yes to Tommy Rueckert just a few short years back!

After supper we settled down to a thoughtful time of reflection and shared around the circle about our spiritual journeys. I talked about finding a new level of prayer as I did the daily Holly meditations and Journal. Then Mick talked about faith, and from there it just got better and better.

We then sang carols, with Tommy accompanying on guitar and EJ on violin, until midnight.

Finally it was time for a late session for the Craver-Rueckerts of packing the car so that they could make an early start for the drive home tomorrow. We’ll go downtown to Artemisia Restaurant for their farewell meal, a breakfast with Walker and Kays, Mick’s and my favorite local jazz group. Artemisia is having a special “New Year’s Brunch”, and that fits our plans perfectly.

We were supping at 9:00, so Mick and I shared a brief prayer for peace in our hearts and in the world, the quickest Gaia Meditation in history! But the thought was there!

2008-12-31

2009-01-01T08:51:00.002-05:00

We had a combination holiday today – subjective Rueckert Christmas Day and consensus-reality New Year’s Eve. Mel came down from Avalon to join us for the latter celebration. The weather cooperated, giving us lots of sunshine while the thermometer plunged all day until the air snapped crisply in the nose like good wine.

After Morning Offering, Mick went to the grocery for a few more supplies. The Craver-Rueckerts arose far earlier than yesterday, and by noon, everyone had eaten Tommy’s breakfast of bacon, brats and eggs over easy. We set about the enjoyable task of opening our presents. Then we settled back and watched another episode of The Office from Ted’s DVD of the first six episodes before we decided to go outside for exercise.

Papa John Schnatter of pizza fame, a resident of our little village, recently finished a system of nature and exercise trails that run through his property, a 300-acre estate a couple of blocks and lots of income levels to the north of our house. Tommy and Ted most kindly gave me a tour, pushing me in the wheelchair over hill and dale. Discovering that the small front wheels of my chair would not let him jog, Tommy popped a permanent wheelie and ran with me tilted backwards at an angle so the front wheels were not hitting the macadam. It felt wickedly precarious but all was well, and I had quite an adventure!

I met with Gary during the lull caused by everyone grabbing a shower after running, and he got me all set on www.bring4th.org. I am now a member! I still have not had the time to explore the new site, having been booked with family matters since Christmas Day. But I will do so as soon as my brother and his family leave Louisville, the day after tomorrow. I also need to write Steve E, the webmaster of the site, and congratulate him on his wonderful launch of so many features!

The Craver-Rueckert clan came and got me and we went to another mall so that Ted, Rosie and EJ could shop for some clothes with their Christmas money. We enjoyed shopping until 8:00 p.m., when the mall closed, and then came home to the aroma of meat loaf, mashed potatoes, peas and mushrooms in Alfredo sauce and green beans with French-fried onions. I quickly made some gravy to top off the tastes, and we sat down to a feast!

We had pie and ice cream to finish the meal while we watched the rest of the episodes of The Office, which took us to midnight. We cheered in the New Year before we all went to bed.

Mick and I passed the prayer for peace at the close of the Gaia Meditation with each other in the cracks of the evening.

I wish all those who read this blog a massive amount of good luck, good friends, good work to do and good health in 2009!

2008-12-30

2008-12-31T08:37:00.002-05:00

Mary had said last night that she would be up by 9:30 and wanted to go out fairly early, so by that hour I had coffee, juices, breads and condiments ready for a continental breakfast. Mick and I did our Morning Offering, and then he went to work for his customer with the forested lawns full of leaves and finally finished bagging them for her. I believe his final total of leaf-bags was 271!

Imagine his surprise when he came back by Camelot to eat lunch at noon and no one was up but me! I told him, “If I’d known, I could have finished my UPI article this morning!" He commiserated with me before leaving to drive to Shelbyville and spend the afternoon cleaning the last of the season’s leaves from Steve F’s estate.

Gary blew in from his Christmas vacation while Mick and I were talking, full of great energy and ready to work at the L/L Research helm. After a full eight hours, he was still massively behind, he said, and he will work again tomorrow. It’s fine indeed to see Iss!

In the event, the last Rueckert awake and stirring was Mary! I think the whole family was just exhausted! So it was good that they slept in. We eventually got on the road to Lynn’s Paradise Café, since Mary had requested a “fancy breakfast place”. Lynn’s takes the cake for that! We all had delicious breakfast dishes there and lingered at table until 3:00 p.m.

Then we stopped by Margaret’s Consignment Shop, since Ted wanted to shop for clothes as well as the girls. I had good luck, finding a purple velvet skirt and a matching top with some pretty bling to add to my closet. I used some of Mom McCarty's gift - cash! Thanks, Mom!

I am grateful for the goodly number of purple and lavender garments to wear with my purple hair. Actually, it is a very dark purple and in dimmer light it just looks dark. However in sunlight, it’s truly purple! I am enjoying the jazzy look and feel of the outrageous color. Every time I see myself in the mirror I grin.

Mary and the kids dropped me back by Camelot and then they went to the malls while Tommy went for a run. Mick and I had a bath and settled in for the evening with the generous dose of football games available today. Everyone arrived back at Camelot by 8:30 and we dined on the delicious ham dinner Mel and Mick prepared last week. Romi joined us and we had a very convivial party of it. It was terrific to see the Ro Man back home!

Then the Craver-Rueckerts and the Rueckert-McCartys played a round of a game called “Imaginiff”. Its silly antics left us all laughing.

It was midnight when the game ended, and Mick and I excused ourselves from the group and went upstairs to bed. We shared a very late Gaia Meditation, with the closing prayer also shared. The Rueckerts stayed up to watch an episode of The Office before calling it a day.

The obvious strain that accompanied their last visit here, two years ago, is nowhere in sight! I think everyone is having a really good time. The vibrations are loving and happy, with no shadows. Praise the Lord! Tomorrow we enjoy a second installment of Christmas giving, combining subjective Rueckert Christmas with New Year’s Eve. And Melissa's coming! We shall ring in the New Year in wonderful company!

2008-12-29

2008-12-30T08:10:00.001-05:00

After Morning Offering Mick went out for errands while I came up to finish my journals, have chapel time and start work on a UPI article on a new difference-maker, Chris Jordan. He is an artist, a photographer who shared my experience of seeing inadvertent beauty in things like a garbage dump shining in the sun. He began taking time to create images of this wabi-sabi beauty and then headed towards activism by creating photographic images of plastic bags or contrails en masse.

Mick and I had lunch together and then I worked further to gather my information for the article while Mick continued with detailing his truck. We broke for a bath at 4:00 p.m. and the Rueckerts – Tommy, Mary, Rosie, Ted and EJ – arrived just as we were dressed again, perfect timing. I popped Melissa’s Artichoke and Spinach Dip in the oven to warm, sliced the French bread and our guests got settled and then joined us in the living room for a nosh and our first chance to talk together in two years as a family.

At 6:00, most of the Rueckerts went out for a run, came back and showered, and we went to the L & N Bistro, which is a restaurant owned and run by Tommy’s long-time friend, Nancy – the N in ‘L & N”. Her brother, Will, also one of Tommy’s oldest friends as they went to school from grade one onwards through high school, joined us with his wife and their two children, a four-year-old and a babe in arms. We had delicious food and a long, rich conversation. Lots of laughter and reminiscences later, we came home replete.

On the way we drove through Lake Forest, a ritzy subdivision nearby which runs its own Christmas home exterior decorating contest, so the houses are fun to look at, with their many colors of lights and fanciful lawn and roof decorations.

When we came back, Tommy got out a game called Sniglets and we had fun with that until about 11:30. Finally the party broke up, and Mick and I came upstairs for a late date, an amazingly powerful energy exchange that left us in awe in the afterglow. And for once, I got to go to sleep immediately thereafter! I barely recall saying our final prayers together. Ah!

2008-12-28

2008-12-29T08:10:00.002-05:00

I awoke with significant nerve pain still creating a challenge for me and decided to spend another indolent day recuperating and hopefully eliminating this type of pain in my neck and shoulders. Otherwise I shall make an appointment for a cortisone epidural on Monday.

Since I did not go to church, Mick and I made our Morning Offering. Then I subsided into puzzles and reading for the morning while Mick cleaned the house. We enjoyed lunch while we watched The Duchess, an opulently produced film set in the late 18th century. The modest-looking Ralph Fiennes walked away with by far the most masterful performance in the piece as a British aristocrat, the most powerful peer in England and a cold, autocratic and insensitive man. In his middle age he marries 17-year-old Keira Knightley, a beautiful young girl who then must cope with an increasing number of injustices.

Knightley does well at expressing the mixture of outrage and the reluctant acceptance that is her only option if she wishes to avoid hurting others. She is costumed and styled magnificently and the settings are memorably rich. The couple is surrounded by an excellent ensemble of players. Charlotte Rampling is especially good as Knightley’s lady mother. Dominic Cooper and Hayley Artwell are also notable as Knightley’s lover and Fiennes’ live-in mistress. What a tangled set of relationships and emotions! The gossip-mongers of the day must have enjoyed this true story!

Michael O’Conner’s costumes have already garnered awards in Britain and should sweep American awards as well. His work is truly outstanding.

Later in the afternoon, after Mick accomplished some needed office work relating to Jim’s Lawn Service, we took up Hancock, a whacky comedy with no particular point except to make us laugh, starring Will Smith in an enjoyable performance as a disenchanted superhero. He’s still saving innocent victims and preserving the peace, but he’s become a bit grumpy and acts out his malaise, damaging the pavements upon which he lands and allowing a good deal of collateral damage during his derring-do.

Jason Bateman, under Peter Berg’s excellent direction, coaxes the recalcitrant superhero into mending his ways, while Charlize Theron is particularly tasty as another superhero(ine) who helps pull Hancock into shape. The silliness is delightfully played and I enjoyed the film tremendously.

We heard from my brother Tommy in late afternoon. It seems that the family got away at 1:30 p.m., so there was no chance of their arriving in Louisville until 2:00 a.m. So he, Mary and their children, Rosie, Ted and E.J., will stay with Mary’s aunt in Beckley, Virginia tonight and arrive at Camelot sometime tomorrow afternoon.

This was dandy news! Much as we will enjoy their visit, it was delicious to have another full day of alone-time. We have had more company than usual, with Tobey and family visiting just before Christmas and Mel, Eric and Phell sharing our Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. It has been delightful! But we enjoy solitude as well. Now we have another day of it!

Tommy and the family plan to stay through New Year’s Day so that Tommy can watch a day of football with Mick. Tommy tells me his family has not been so excited about a Christmas visit in years! I think the work that Mary and I did beforehand has made all the difference for us all.

We’ve smoothed out the glitch of Mary’s having to spend too much time with Tommy’s old school friends and have made some fun plans for urban and rural recreation. I am certainly looking forward to it far more than in previous years. And we have moved Mary and Tommy to the basement room where no cats have ever been, which will hopefully alleviate Mary’s allergies.

Mick and I concluded our Sunday by enjoying some episodes of House. Mick offered the closing prayer at the Gaia Meditation tonight.

2008-12-27

2008-12-28T06:56:00.004-05:00

Awakening at 3:00 a.m. with interstitial cystitis symptoms that kept me in the bathroom most of the rest of the night and continued arthritic symptoms of nerve pain in my neck and left shoulder, I found myself ready to accept Mick’s suggestion that I rest completely for the day. So while Mick and Melissa swirled around the house having a very productive day, I worked my new Christmas crossword puzzles from Mel and read the new Nora Roberts romance that Mick gave me and took it easy. By bath time, my symptoms had calmed down and I was able to channel tonight.

The two finished cooking the food in advance of my brother, Tommy’s visit with his family, which will begin tomorrow evening. We now have two complete meals of the normal sit-down kind, plus a wiener-and-chili meal to eat while watching football on New Year’s Day. We have salad and deli meats for lunches and bacon and farm-fresh eggs for breakfasts. We’re ready!

Mel packed away the turkey hash, herbed parsnips and curried wild rice that were left over from Christmas Eve and will eat that up on Avalon. We finished the work day with newly organized refrigerators and a feeling of readiness that's sweet indeed.

Melissa spent the afternoon shopping with her Wal-Mart gift card, given by Gary, laying in her supply of winter underwear and new socks and shopping around for other items on her list, to no avail.

Mick whiled away the afternoon hours doing his annual clean-up of Sibyl, his JLS truck. The truck is used hard all year for lawn work, and gradually his four carefully filled boxes of tools become jumbled and the truck gets dirty. By bath time Sibyl was all cleaned out and the inside scrubbed with 409. The four boxes, which cleverly fit the truck bed, were replaced, all organized again, and secured by the space bar. Mick’s ready to go for another year!

Daniel from Bowling Green, Kentucky, joined Melissa, Mick and me for our L/L Research meditation and study meeting at 8:00 p.m. We had our round-robin discussion and then chose a group question on whether we can learn wisdom from our teachers or whether we can only learn by our own experiences. It was an interesting question and I look forward to editing the transcript and learning more about Q'uo's response.

I offered the prayer for the Gaia Meditation at the end of our channeled meditation.

2008-12-26

2008-12-27T07:38:00.004-05:00

The weather warmed up all day, but from dawn until dusk it remained overcast and lowering. After Morning Offering I spent a fruitless half-hour on the telephone attempting to make an appointment at the Spine Institute for an epidural injection of cortisone to alleviate a particularly painful flare-up of nerve pain in my neck and left shoulder but it was impossible to get off “hold”. Another half-hour in the afternoon produced the same results. It’s too bad, because the weekend is upon us, and I will not be able to get even an appointment, much less the injection, until Monday. Ah well!

My brother Jim sent me some photos of my youngest nephew, his and Kai’s son Wills. I thought Wills had inherited his Mom’s Asian eyes, but the new photos show no epicanthic folds. He’s a big baby! I teased my brother as to where the baby inherited that size! The Rueckerts are a small-boned, slightly built family. Jim is 5’ 8” and Kai, a native of Thailand, barely clears five feet. I am 5’ 4” and my other brother, Tommy, is 5’ 7”. Wills will dwarf us all someday!

Jim seems very happy indeed, for which I am profoundly grateful to Kai, a strong woman with excellent values. She is just what he has needed for decades! She is half his age, but contains more drive, energy and nerve in her little body than my amiable brother ever had. So the match is well nigh perfect. I think they have found true love.

Jim reports that Kai’s restaurant, now a year old, is solidly in the black and gaining momentum. This is super news, for they went deeply into debt in order to procure the building and start up the business. I suspect that Kai will eventually do so well with the business that Jim might even be able to go to work for her instead of teaching electronics. He loves to chat up the customers with his usual outgoing, genuinely friendly personality and good cheer. I am so thrilled that their gamble paid off for them!

I wrote half a dozen personal e-mails and then responded to Buke T’s latest questions. Then, feeling distinctly below par, I relaxed into a deep afternoon nap. When I awoke it was time to greet Morris, our L/L Research vice-president, who came over during his all-too-brief yearly visit to his Dad to be with us for the annual meeting. We had a quorum with Gary, Melissa, Steve T, Morris, Mick and I on the line. Jim had created a solid agenda and the meeting only took an hour! And we covered everything well. We will send the minutes of the meeting to the rest of the board next week.

We reported that our fund drive had netted $17,000+ so far. So we shall extend the drive into next year, since we need a good bit more than that to do business for all of 2009. And we were thrilled to report that www.bring4th.net is launched!

It was wonderful to be with Morris, a most beloved friend and partner in service to others! He is such an inspiration to us! He had all sorts of family obligations today and had to leave way too soon, but he promises to stop by for a strictly personal visit on his way to the airport as he leaves town. We shall look forward to that!

After Morris left, Mick and I indulged in a long whirlpool and then a sweet, slow, very exciting energy exchange. I went to sleep in the afterglow as usual, and Mick awoke me later for a late supper and the Gaia Meditation. Mick offered the closing prayer.

2008-12-25

2008-12-26T08:34:00.002-05:00

Christmas came gently to Camelot, with cloudy skies and temperatures chilly enough to make snuggling into a sweater feel good. We slept late and gathered around 9:00 for our Morning Offering. Mel and I were still in our jimmies as we listened to the readings for today and offered up hymns and prayers along with some silent meditation.

Melissa and I changed into day wear and I had my ice treatment – Mick massages my back and neck with ice for 2 minutes twice a day to take down the level of arthritic pain – and then we reassembled for the great unwrapping! First we opened the stockings which Santa Mel had made, retrieving nuts, tangerines, candies and small gifts like a crossword puzzle book for me and a yo-yo for Mick. The stockings were generous and opening each little gift took us until almost 11:30.

We took a short break, Melissa for a smoke, Mick for a Christmas snuggle with Dan D. Lion and me for a call to Gary to figure out how to launch www.bring4th.org! Don’t ask me how, but the carefully pre-set image on the computer had shifted to the right. I could see where the ribbon which I was supposed to click on ended, but it was basically off-screen to the left, nor could I move it into view. Gary set me right soon enough, and voila! The work of Steve E’s many sleepless nights and commuter trips was unveiled! I shall have to go on-line tomorrow, log in and play with the site’s features. Kudos to Steve for a wonderful job!

We three had expected Eric and his Mom, Phell, yesterday evening, but the rain was too heavy for them down in Marion County yesterday, with lots of ponding and flooding on roadways, and they stayed safely home until today. They arrived as we were beginning to open presents, and fell right into our Christmas schemes. We happily opened presents around the circle until we were all out of bows to untie and ribbons to cut and subsided into conversation, replete with lovely presents and each others’ company. It did seem like a shame to tear up Mel's beautiful and artistic wraps, which featured natural decorations like rose hips, oak-leaf hydrangea blossoms and sedum!

Melissa brought out her baked artichoke-heart and spinach appetizer, with crusty French bread to slather it on, and we feasted on that while our Christmas dinner was heating. In time, the biscuits were popped in the oven and I made the gravy. We laid out meat loaf, mashed potatoes and green bean casserole – comfort food indeed, and a nice change from the traditional foods. Mom McCarty’s chocolate cake and ice cream topped off the meal. Yum!

These celebratory times always go too fast! Eric and Phell left at 4:30, wanting to drive home in daylight, and Melissa left soon thereafter, hearing her chickens and kitties calling. Mick and I did a bit of clean-up and put-away, and then I relaxed with my Christmas puzzle book while Mick washed the linens from Tobey’s family’s visit and got the beds ready to receive Tommy, Mary and their three children on the 27th.

We reunited for a late supper and the Gaia Meditation, at which I offered the closing prayer. I hope that each who reads this little journal had a most blessed and beautifully meaningful day as well!

2008-12-24

2008-12-25T07:55:00.005-05:00

Christmas Eve! The magic of it swirled around me as I sat in Morning Offering and beheld the day! Delicious! Afterwards, Melissa, Mick and I descended upon the kitchen. First Mel went through our freezers and fridges – we have two of them, for use when we have a Gathering – to make space to store the food we were to cook. She pulled out a package of beef that was past its eat-by date.

So before we got started on the cooking for today and tomorrow, I cut some onions, carrots and celery and stewed the patties to make beef broth. I firmly believe in keeping homemade broth handy. It makes a good recipe better when you can use broth instead of water to cook rice or make gravy or soup.

Then we pitched in! Mick created mashed potatoes for Christmas Day dinner. Mel created the meat loaf for the same meal. I tackled the chicken chili for late-night supper tomorrow. Mick re-potted the curried wild rice and the parsnips with herbs which Gary made last Friday for the occasion tonight while Melissa finished up tomorrow’s meal by making green beans with French-fried onions.

Mick finished his good work by going to the grocery for yet more things we forgot – biscuits for Christmas Day’s feast, potato chips and deli meats and cheeses for late-night sandwiches tomorrow. I, who kept having to rest between stages of cooking, took on the turkey hash for tonight and at last finished it. Mel and Mick manned the kitchen clean-up. And we were ready to relax!

Melissa sat down with Traitor, a film which Mick and I had viewed last Sunday. I came upstairs to read and, hopefully, nap and Mick eventually joined me to invite me to a bath. We came back upstairs after we got all scrubbed and napped together until time for dinner, a meal which we thoroughly enjoyed!

We three conversed until the Gaia Meditation, at which Mick offered the closing prayer. Then it was time for me to go to St. Luke’s for the practice before the midnight mass. The choir worked its way through the many pieces we were to sing tonight, and then, all at once, the wonderful service began. Melissa and Mick came to hear all the music, which tickled me no end!

I felt present with Christ tonight, and I felt also that Christ was present with me. I was lifted to a spacious, glowing place of light where every sensation of ear and eye registered with supernal clarity. My throat opened and I was able to sing the high notes of my parts in several baroque anthems surely and cleanly. Praise the Lord! The service was riveting and sparkling but long, lasting until 12:30, so when Mick picked me up at the chancel steps in the wheelchair, we could say, “Merry Christmas!”

I will sleep well tonight – no sugarplums, just thanksgiving and joy dancing through my head!

2008-12-23

2008-12-24T07:34:00.003-05:00

I awoke early today, which was a signal blessing! I had my chapel time, wrote my Camelot Journal and Holly Journal entries and penned my UPI article for this week, all before it was time to join Mick for a wake-up cuddle and our Morning Offering. I decided to write about my childhood memories of Christmas for today's column. It was fun, looking back and remembering!

I got a call from Dianne S, who planned to go with me to Images Salon for her cut and color, as I was preparing to drive to the Salon and become a purple-haired lady. She said that she was concerned about the weather up her way and had canceled. The great thing about that is that just after she cancelled, a client called up Images with a sob story about a relative coming to their home for a visit with a horrible haircut. The client was in tears. “No problem,” said Jazz, bring her right in!”

Dianne’s concern may well have been accurate. Later in the day, Romi and Gary left to drive up I-71, which is how one gets to Avalon from here, to travel to Ohio together. Romi is having car trouble, so Gary volunteered to drop him off at his brother’s home on his way to visit his Mom and sisters. They got halfway to Cincinnati and were stopped cold on I-71. For four straight hours they moved about 100 feet per hour. Finally they saw a chance for a U-turn and drove back to Camelot where they will spend the night. They will try again tomorrow. It is supposed to continue warming up and will be in the fifties tomorrow. That should be better!

It rained all day, in 33- to 35-degree F temperatures. There was no ice in the rain. However the ground and roads had been frozen solid by sub-zero temperatures for the past several days. As the rain hit, especially on some exposed surfaces like bridges and overpasses, it turned to ice. People were driving too fast, and they got into trouble in record numbers.

I had no trouble at all, thank you Lord! After I became purple-haired – which I love! – I had a slow and delicious lunch all by myself in the bar at KT’s. There was a long wait for a table, and I like bar booths just as well as dining room tables. Fortified with good food, I went on to the grocery, got myself an electric cart and foraged for a picnic butt half-ham, a stewing chicken and lots of items for creating the meals for Christmas Eve, Christmas Day and the eventual onslaught of Rueckerts on the 27th.

I was very fortunate that the grocery people kindly helped me put my groceries in Stanley, and when I got home, Gary ran out, sprinkling calcium chloride on the walk and back deck for me. He got me into the house safely and then got the groceries in. What a guy!

By bath time, I had baked the ham and stewed the chicken until the meat was off the bones and the carcass had disintegrated. The chicken and chicken broth will become chicken chili for the Rueckerts. The ham will be their entrée on their first night here. I found an interesting recipe for apple, pineapple and orange salsa which will go over the sliced ham.

Then I pulled the recipes for the other groceries out of our database – corn pudding, mashed sweet potatoes, peas with Portabella mushrooms, meat loaf, turkey hash and green bean casserole. I made a grocery list of the things I had forgotten and called Melissa with them. She will stop at the grocery tomorrow morning on her way down from Avalon. We’ll have a grand time together cooking in the morning and afternoon, at the end of which we should be all set for Christmas food. On the day after Christmas, Mick and I will punch up the other recipes in readiness for the Rueckert clan's visit of the 27th through January 2nd.

In the cracks I took a couple of gifts I ordered for Melissa that had come in today, just in time, whew!, and put them in gift bags. We're all ready under the tree now!

I never did get back to the computer today! Bath time came late as it was, but it felt super great to have our plans for hospitality so far advanced. I marvel at how we seem to slip into Christmas, with so many chores and errands on our minds, all of which get done somehow. It will be sweet indeed to come to the end of the afternoon tomorrow, have a bath and then proceed into the peace of the actual events of Christmas, starting with the Midnight Mass. I will sing my heart out!

I offered the closing prayer at the Gaia Meditation tonight. Then Mick went into the kitchen and sliced the ham to freeze until after Christmas. And he cut up the turkey for the turkey hash and the chicken for the chicken chili. We’re ready for tomorrow’s cooking! Here comes Christmas!

2008-12-22

2008-12-23T07:05:00.002-05:00

Melissa and I sat down after Morning Offering and chewed over the logistics of Christmas Day and Rueckert Family Gathering food. We caught Gary on his way out the door to spend his work day serving at The Cracker Barrel and asked if he might lend Mel his bedroom for New Years Eve night, since he will be at Valerie’s. Mel is giving up her usual room to Tommy and Mary for their visit, and wants to spend New Year’s Eve with us. We have the Christmas Day cooking figured out, but are still scratching our heads over the family visit’s food. I think we will eat out a good deal during their visit, or call in some take-away food.

Mel finished her present wrapping and then took off to see to her chickens and the cats on Avalon, who have been braving the cold weather upriver at the farm. She left behind some presents for me to sign the "to and from" tags and place under the tree, and a container of homemade cookies which I immediately hid, as per Mick’s firm instructions. He cannot contain himself around cookies! And we want them to serve our guests on Christmas Day!

I spent my morning and early afternoon at Absolutely Salon, getting a much needed massage and a manicure-pedicure. I got home at almost 2:00 p.m. and had lunch. Most irritatingly, in prying a recalcitrant omega-8 pill from my pill holder, I scraped the brand new enamel on my right thumb. Rats!

I came upstairs intending to work on my UPI column for this week, but found three separate e-mails from Mary, my sister-in-law. She has been thinking about our time together and making lots of good suggestions for how it will go. She wants to attend a couple of concerts, and for the next ninety minutes I came to discover that if there IS a source of such community information available, I can’t find it! Then I spent the rest of the afternoon writing her back on the dozen or so topics she covered.

By the time I had finished, I found that she and I are beginning to fill in the blanks of our days together in ways that will be relaxing and enjoyable for us. We now have a trip to see “Light Up Louisville” planned for one night, where we’ll walk down Fourth Street and Main Street - me in my wheelchair - and see all the lights before eating somewhere downtown. We have one night at Nancy’s restaurant, the L & N Bistro and the reservations are made for that. And we have pizza planned for New Year’s Day’s football glut. There is a trip to walk the old trails at Spring Mill planned as well, with a meal at the old inn there afterwards.

This is the first time in all our years of shared holidays that Mary and I have sat down ahead of time and collaborated together to make our time more fun. It’s time well spent, I think.

Mick and I had a refreshing bath together before coming upstairs to enjoy a date! Yum! Our sharing had real fire, and I reveled in it. Soon Mick was awakening me out of my somnolent afterglow for dinner and the Gaia Meditation, at which I was supposed to offer the closing prayer. However my prayer began and ended with zzzzzzzzz so Mick offered the prayer instead! This was not my best moment!

2008-12-21

2008-12-22T07:51:00.004-05:00

Happy Winter Solstice! It was certainly a cold one here, with wind chills below zero. But what a treat it is to see the sun shining! It is the first sunny day in a week or more!

I know that just before Christmas is a nutty time to start slimming, but this is when my personality shell agreed to do that so I have started. Today I cut my Sunday treat in half – one Sausage McMuffin instead of two! And for lunch, one half-sandwich instead of two. I am glad that my personality gave way on this and agreed to cut back, because I have reached the magic weight of 175 pounds. I call it magic because it was at that weight that I decided to slim down in 2001 or so. I did the same thing then, cutting my portions in half. Hopefully it will work and I will have an uneventful time losing again.

I do have an additional challenge this time, and that is that I cannot exercise any longer. Exercise resulted in three stress fractures in a row to my right foot, so I had to stop walking several years ago. My difficulty in exerting myself at all is absolute, currently. If I try to garden or do the stretching exercises I used to do, the symptoms of nerve pain in my back and shortness of breath are acute. My doctor gave me pain medication so I could garden, but as with all pain meds, I am sensitive to it and in this case got a really nasty itch which was worse by far than the pain it was supposed to eliminate!

Ah well! Fat or thin, well or ill, my heart is the Lord’s and I can still work for Him each and every day, both by what I do and by who I am and how I live. I hope only to serve my Beloved, and that prayer is answered daily with a resounding YES! So I live in gratitude and thanksgiving!

The service at St. Luke’s was delightful today. We sang carols and lit the fourth Advent candle on our big chancel wreath. The very last candle will be lit on Christmas Eve! I love this church and its people so much! They are so quick to help and so loving in every way!

We sang at the chancel steps today, which required me to move my stand, music and myself. I could not do that by myself in the time allotted, and at my previous parish, which I attended for 37 years, I would not have been able to sing. At St. Luke’s, one person moved the music stand, another took the music, and I had more arms to hold on to than I had hands for getting down those stairs. Praise the Lord for good people!

When Mick brought me home, we sat down to lunch along with the first of our two films, Traitor, with Don Cheadle and Guy Pearce. It was both written and directed by Jeffrey Nachmanoff, who created a rich, thick, varied texture of derring-do and spy-versus-spy. Cheadle was excellent as the man who is far more than he appears and Pearce and the surrounding ensemble supported his twists and turns beautifully. Who is the terrorist and who is the hero? Watch it and see!

Mick napped for an hour between shows while I read and finished working the Sunday puzzles. And Melissa arrived, intent on working on her Christmas gift stockings. She went down to the basement to do so, while Mick and I watched Wanted, another action film starring James McAvoy and Angelina Jolie as student and teacher in a school for assassins called The Fraternity. Seldom have I seen a film fuller of brutal violence. Still, the plot had legs and we enjoyed seeing the complex film unfold.

It has to have been a great deal of fun to work on this movie, because they filmed all over Europe, one beautiful location after another as the backdrops for the relentless action. And the sound track was excellent, as were all the production values. Was the story far-fetched? So what! It was most entertaining.

In the break, Mick and I went to the grocery, where I bought the food ready-made which I had neglected to make from scratch, not feeling well enough to cook. Melissa came upstairs to help me get the baked beans in the oven and re-pot the slaw and Gary, who was just in from a very brisk walk in Bernheim Forest, got the trays ready and cut the cheese to go on the kielbasa and bratwurst which Romi always brings as our traditional fare for the Winter Solstice ceremony.

With the supper preparations in hand, we poured wine for everyone and had the ceremony. It is short and sweet, but meaningful. We were inside because of the severe cold, so instead of the bonfire, we lit a candle and turned off all the lights. Then we chanted,

“This is the night, the longest night,
The longest night of the year.
What shall we give to the night?”

Then someone would shout out, “Hunger” or “Violence” or “Politicians”. And we would reply, “Hunger – BAH” and push our hands and arms up and out to banish hunger into the night. We repeated the little chant until we were all out of things to give to the night. Then we gave thanks for all the good things that reamin to gladden our day.

I sang “In the Bleak Midwinter” for the ritual. I love the last verse of the hymn,

“What can I give Him, poor as I am?
If I were a shepherd, I would bring a lamb.
If I were a wise man, I would do my part.
But what I can, I give Him – give my heart.”

We were still eating our dinner when Tobey arrived with his wife and two children. They are on their way to Kansas to spend Christmas with relatives. We were delighted to see them.

They had a miserable journey here, first stuck in traffic because a semi had overturned ahead of them and then rear-ended during the traffic jam, so that they had to wait for the police and report the incident. That and the cold made the trip from Virginia to here a long one!

Jim and Gary went out to help Tobey get his maimed trunk open, and miraculously it both opened and would close again! Thank you, Lord. Melissa did some quick moving around, putting herself in the compass room, which has one bed, so that Tobey and Jennifer could sleep in her room, which has a double bed. The children will sleep in the upstairs guest room.

Tobey has long been one of L/L Research’s best friends and volunteers. He has graced many of our Gatherings and he started the Relistening Project some time ago, his aim being to create an on-line record of the exact text of all the 106 Ra sessions, without any of the deletions of personal material which the printed books have. He is almost finished now, with only eleven sessions to go! Tobey has also been working with Jeremy, Gary and Steve E to get our activist site, www.bring4th.org, ready for its Christmas Day launch. So it was wonderful to be able to offer him and his dear family hospitality.

Romi offered the prayer at the Gaia Meditation tonight.

2008-12-20

2008-12-21T07:46:00.002-05:00

It was cold and then colder today as arctic air moved our way. Consequently, Mick did not adorn our roof lines with lights, but instead he lit our front hedge and the fir tree next to the front porch. It looks very festive indeed!

After Morning Offering I settled into working on Buke T’s question on distortion. By bath time I had sent off my response to Gary to send on to her. I greatly enjoyed working on that question, as I was able to steep myself in TLOO material all day! It makes for good company and provokes many a thought.

I also wrote three more thank-you notes, hoping to stay even with that seasonal honor/duty as Christmas nears. I have only four more notes to write to catch up with the bounty of gifts which has already come my way this Christmas. People from all over send me gifts – sometimes complete strangers to me physically. But if they read and enjoy my work, they can’t be strangers!

After Mick and I had our bath, we welcomed Romi and John F, a new visitor to our group, who drove up from Bowling Green, Kentucky, a two-hour drive away. He is a college student with a very good understanding of our work, having studied it intensively on line. Gary also joined us. We enjoyed our round-robin talk around the circle and then a peaceful, powerful silent meditation.

Gary worked on the B4 web site today with Steve E, its webmaster, and we set the time of high noon on Christmas Day for me to cut the ribbon and open the site! Please do log on to www.bring4th.org and sign up as a member! There are lots of ways to communicate all set up and ready to go. Gary is so stoked about it! I can’t wait to see the new site! He, Tobey W, Jeremy W and Steve E have been working with the site in test mode for the last month or so, and hopefully they have found each and every glitch!

I offered the Gaia Meditation prayer at the end of our silent meditation tonight.

2008-12-19

2008-12-20T08:10:00.003-05:00

This was a most unusual day! We broke a weather record over 100 years old by topping 70 F. And Mick was out in it all day, bagging leaves. He is up to 209 bags of leaves for this customer, and still has her back half-acre to clear. He will definitely break his record, which was 230 bags last year, when he completes the job tomorrow!

It was raining to beat the band for much of the day. Mick said he was bagging snow, rain and leaves!

I stayed inside and kept dry, except for going out to cuddle Dan D. Lion McCarty-cat, who prefers his front porch “house” when the weather is wet. I wrote 5 thank you notes for gifts already received. Then I finished my research on “distortion”. I am ready to respond to Buke’s question now.

I realize that I could answer these questions off the top of my head, and my response would be close to accurate. However I want to be fully accurate in representing the Confederation point of view. So it is worth it to me to do the research. I do not charge her for this research, just for the writing time.

In e-mail:

• I sent Gary notice that I was writing three friends for their new contact information. Their cards came back “unable to deliver”.

• I thanked Diane P for her gift of a very interesting book called The Magus of Strovolos. The ET info in it jibes completely with the Confederation message, which I find fascinating.

• I responded to Sydney S’s invitation to lunch together and share some girlfriend time soon enthusiastically and asked her to choose a day after January 6th. Sydney and I were friends all through college. She's remained an academic ever since, and teaches languages at U of Louisville.

• I sent Doris S’s list of open appointments to Mick and asked him to choose a day for us to meet with her. She is our business advisor.

• I answered Terry H’s question about distortion. Synchronistically, he had gotten stuck on that concept while translating the channeling session which was held on 12-20-1998. He will use that channeling – in Chinese – for his Christmas cards.

Mick and I had a lovely date tonight and then napped before coming down to dinner and some episodes of House. Mick offered the closing prayer at the Gaia Meditation tonight.

2008-12-18

2008-12-19T08:14:00.002-05:00

We are moving fully into the glory of the Christmas spirit now! Today the house was filled with the tantalizing aroma of Melissa’s baking and Mick got up on the roof in the late afternoon rain and secured the lights that outline our gabled and complex roof lines to make our beloved Camelot light up like a gingerbread house!

Melissa also finished the present wrapping and put the gifts under the tree to make a very festive display. Her every package is a delight to study, with berries, rose hips, evergreen and pretty bows and ribbons on each package. It will be a loss to open them, for they are truly works of art. I am so grateful to her for this, as it brings my wonderful Mother back to me. Here’s a poem I must have written thirty years ago, when my Mama was still alive:

“Jesus Christ, come to life
Jeannie/Jason, Mother, Wife,
To both of you, Earth and divine,
Thanks for giving us Christmas time.

“The elegiac, somber tones of winter now draw nigh,
Yet in that deepest darkness, the Son of Man arrives,
Clothed in wooly blanket, the ox and ass nearby
Nurturing his human-ness, praising God on high.

“I used to take for granted all our Christmas spirits’ wealth
The mistletoe and Christmas lights, the gifts to wrap in stealth
And though I’m older, now I see she gives all of her self.

“One winter, Mama will be gone, and I shall be full sad
For Christmas in her house is all the Christmas that I’ve had.
All the glorious packages, all the moments sad,
All the potlatch sharing, with a heart so glad.

“It isn’t that my family neglects or rejects Love
But rather that my Mama outpaces all who move
While father and son-in-law “Bah Humbug” soft they prove
Though their names are on our presents their Scrooge-ishness disprove.

“We always go to midnight mass, to worship and to sing
Glad hymns of exultation, great “Alleluias” ring
Then up at dawn on Christmas day to see what Santa sends
Mama’s hands cut Danish—so Christmas Day begins.

“Now, dear Papa, I mean no hurt to Thee.
You make the house aglow with lights, a colored harmony
You stuff the festive bird with yet another recipe
And in your own way, sometimes you’re so sweet I want to weep.

“But Mama, you’re my Christmas. “

So, thanks, Melissa, from the bottom of my heart, for bringing all that back to me! You’re the best!

While Gary worked in the office and Mel in the kitchen, Mick slogged through the wet and cold to work with leaves and more leaves. He got about half of the work done on his biggest leaf-bagging customer, who lives amid a forest and wants all her leaves bagged. Last year, the total of her bags of leaves was 230. This year he is up to 160 and says he may well exceed the record tomorrow when he attacks her back acre. Imagine, after all that, soaking wet, he started on our outdoor lights when he finished maintaining his equipment!

I finished researching a question for Buke on parallel lives and sent that off to Gary to send to her. Then I continued to do research on “distortion”, which is her next question for me. And in the cracks, I cleared my desk writing e-letters to folks who have moved, whose Christmas cards from us have been returned, to ask them for their new contact information.

Mel left with her sweet breads in hand to give to the people who have helped her with our tractor and farm truck on Avalon as well as the solar batteries, around bath time. Gary said good-night after the Gaia Meditation, at which he offered the closing prayer. And Mick and I toddled off to bed with sugar plums dancing in our heads! I love Christmas!

2008-12-17

2008-12-18T08:17:00.002-05:00

This was a hash of a day! After Morning Offering, Mick went out to do a couple of jobs for customers. When he returned, he wanted to do some personal errands. If my dear Stanley Outback is available, he generally uses it instead of his bulky truck and trailer. But Stanley could not start.

Fortunately, Melissa was here, and she and Jim figured out that there had been a rear dome light left on all night which had drained the battery. Neither of us knew that light existed, which was why, when Mick tripped it yesterday bundling the wheel chair out of the way to carry the tree home, he’d tripped it accidentally without realizing it. Oops! But a jump start set all to rights.

The crisis precipitated multiple visits by Mick and then by Mel to my office as they needed to know where the service book was, who sold new batteries and did they have one and so forth. Then there were more visits with Mel as we debated and then decided on some cookie, quick-bread and fudge recipes for her to use in baking some Christmas sweets, both for here and for those who have helped her this year with Avalon’s ancient and struggling tractor and truck.

It made for a distracted and unfocused day for me, although I did not mind the interruptions at all – we’re all in this together, and one job is equal to another.

I managed, in the cracks, to do research for two of Buke T’s new round of questions. I feel privileged to have these questions to answer, as she is paying the same rate as for counseling. When I work on them I get the double delight of immersing myself in the Confederation material and creating some income for L/L Research. I am working on her questions, “What is distortion” and “What if I met myself, living parallel lives?”

Melissa wrapped presents for most of her remaining afternoon, after helping with the Stanley crisis. We got together after Mick’s and my bath for a brief hour of conversation before I went to choir practice, where we are practicing Christmas music of the baroque era, lovely pieces indeed. Sweelink, Hassler and Scheidt join Bach and Rutter for a glorious ensemble of sound. Christmas Eve we will have brass and tympani also! Yum!

I offered the closing prayer at the Gaia Meditation tonight.

2008-12-16

2008-12-17T11:30:00.002-05:00

Our day started early, since the weather was varying between snow, sleet and freezing rain. Mick got all four of his “snow removal” customers’ walks and porches covered with a layer of calcium chloride. In late afternoon he again made his rounds, spreading the salt again where it was needed.

After a somewhat delayed Morning Offering, I finished my journal entries, had some good chapel time and then tackled the UPI article on Joyous Chee’s question as to whether we were not all wanderers, since we were multi-dimensional beings. I finished the writing just as Mick called bath time.

Romi wrote to say that he was donating a faster computer than Growler to L/L Research, since Growler was struggling to handle all the QuickBooks and other software on it. He asked what to do with the old Growler. I suggested that he set it up in Melissa’s room in our basement. That way, she will have her own computer when she wants it, no matter who else is working on the downstairs computers. She does a ton of research and deserves her own machine.

When I came downstairs for our bath at eventide, I saw with delight that Mick had gotten our Christmas tree up and trimmed! It’s beautiful! However there were perhaps half as many ornaments on the tree as before. Mick told me that mice got into the ornament box. Up until this last Christmas, we used styrofoam pellets to cushion the ornaments. Foolish moi purchased a fancy ornament keeper box last year with cardboard divisions. Apparently the mice in our garage loft liked the cardboard and then liked the ornaments as well. I imagine they made some festive nests!

As Charlie Brown so aptly would say, “Rats!” Ah well, we will eventually have a fully ornamented tree again! I always give the tree an ornament at Christmastime. This year’s is a pretty, handmade star. And sometimes we get ornaments as gifts, too. Meanwhile, less is more!

Mick also spread around our other Christmas things, treasures saved from my Mother’s lifetime collection. She died in 1991, but her crèches and wreaths bring her back for me each year. Mom loved Christmas! She was the best ever at decorating tree, mantel and each and every package! Each year, the effect was prettier than the last.

Romi joined Gary, Mick and me for supper and the Gaia Meditation. We talked more about Mel’s computer, the old Growler, and Ro said he had a surplus monitor screen to donate so she would have a complete outfit in her room!

We also talked about Ro’s coming over sometime during the week after Christmas to scan the rest of the pages for Dana’s Alphabet Mosaics’ appendices. I was thrilled to hear it!

I asked the assembled about our usual Winter Solstice bonfire and wiener roast. We decided to have it in late evening this year, since Tobey and his family will not be arriving at our house until the evening. Romi will bring his Czech sausages, which taste and look a lot like bratwurst, some dark bread and some sharp mustard. We’ll mull some cider or mead and create something to go with the meat sandwiches. They do taste wonderful, burned and smoked in the bonfire!

Romi offered the closing prayer at the Gaia Meditation tonight.

2008-12-15

2008-12-16T07:02:00.003-05:00

The day started out warm and dry but concluded with freezing rain and the promise of arctic air by tomorrow. Mick worked until the weather closed him down in mid-afternoon.

After Morning Offering I wrote my journals, luxuriated in chapel time and then spent my work day collecting quotes to use when writing my UPI article of the week. I am still going through Joyous Chee’s questions. His third one is on Wanderers, so I was steeped in what Ra said about them all day.

I had an appointment with my GP at 3:00 p.m., and Mick found the time to drive me through the worsening weather to it. What a treat! We enjoyed the chance to talk. We stopped in at Louisville Tractor on the way home to purchase calcium chloride for Mick’s four snow removal customers, and Mick spread it for them after he dropped me off.

After completing all of his customers’ jobs, Mick put in some time here, maintaining his equipment and cleaning the dirt off the eaves which landed there while he was removing the leaves from the gutters the other day. Our yard looks so pretty! It is ironic that it is only when winter comes that Mick has the time really to clean up our little acre!

I wrote Romi, who had sent me an e-mail concerning Dana’s book, thanking him for letting me know when he would be able to persevere on the scanning for The Alphabet Mosaics. He will spend a day right around Christmas doing the needed work! This is good news. He has been stymied for a while now, but has solved the problem of shrinking margins and is ready now to go forward.

I also wrote Ba, who wrote in with her Christmas news. Ba will have a family Christmas, with her sons and their families coming for almost two weeks! Ba has had a heavy teaching schedule all fall, but after Christmas, she will again go to Brazil to be with John of God, and this time, her husband will be with her! What a treat!

Lorisa had sent in a request for our permission to print a study guide for The Law of One. I was eager to give it, but discovered that she had quoted massively from TLOO without ever giving the first reference. By massive, I mean that almost the entire text of the first four volumes of TLOO was hashed up, divided into subjects, and all without a single footnote that led the student back to the work itself and the precious context that gives the quotes their larger meaning. I suggested that she apply the quotation marks and footnotes that would render her work a true study guide, for only then can I give permission for her to print that work.

I also wrote Gary concerning his idea of a section on B4 which would contain collections of quotes on topics from our archives. I think it is a great idea, and when he is ready, I offered to send him all my quote collections. I have a good many, collected while writing UPI articles and 101.

Lastly, Romi wrote concerning our equipment. One of our computers, whom we fondly call Growler because of his deep buzz when turned on, is still slow after he made his improvements, so Romi will most generously donate a slightly used computer with more memory to replace the Growler. I wrote to thank him, and to suggest that he, Gary and I sit down and figure out whether we want to keep Growler or donate him to charity. My guess is that Mel would enjoy having a computer in her room when she comes to town.

Mick offered the closing prayer at the Gaia Meditation tonight.

2008-12-14

2008-12-15T06:51:00.003-05:00

I went to church this morning amidst very warm breezes as our area prepares for a big clash between these southerly winds and a big arctic front coming our way tomorrow. It felt a bit eerie to feel the 60-degree F warmth while dead leaves scuffled across streets lined with bare trees.

We sang Mendelssohn’s “How Lovely Are the Messengers” this morning and enjoyed a good sermon on getting right with our neighbors before Christmas comes. I love St. Luke’s services! There is such a festive and loving atmosphere there.

After Mick finished his cleaning and I my church-going, we settled down over lunch to watch The Dark Knight, the umpteenth sequel to Batman. It is the best episode of that franchise for a long time – perhaps ever. Christian Bale was a fine, gravel-voiced Batman and Heath Ledger will probably receive a posthumous Oscar for his portrayal of The Joker. It was a subtle and nuanced performance which made Jack Nicholson’s turn some years ago as The Joker look overdone and naïve. Aaron Eckhart, playing a good guy gone bad, was also excellent and the ensemble of Michael Caine, Gary Oldman, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Eric Roberts and Morgan Freeman was superb.

It was a long film! After 90 minutes Mick put the movie on pause and we snoozed for an hour or so before finishing the last hour of it with some popcorn. Then we took a break until dinner. I found Gary’s additions to the Gatherings Newsletter waiting in my Inbox and read through them, editing the copy and turning it back around to him. Now Gary can send the newsletter to our “send” list for that periodical. I am excited to see the response to our addition to the schedule of a Gathering in memory of Bob Riedel.

Wynn F wrote to let me know that the Las Cruces group wanted me to join them by telephone on January 15th. I added that to my schedule. They will be asking questions about The Law of One.

Over supper Mick and I watched our second film of the day, The X Files: I Want to Believe. David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson, both looking as pretty as ever, were again the doughty duo of Mulder and Scully, searching for the answer to an enigmatic series of killings. It felt like a very enjoyable, double-length TV episode.

We offered the Gaia Meditation, with Gary praying at the close, before finishing our day with two beautifully rendered episodes of House. Hugh Laurie is surrounded by an excellent ensemble as he puts on a terrific portrayal of the offbeat doctor-genius in consistently well-written and sharply directed pieces.

2008-12-13

2008-12-14T18:16:00.002-05:00

What an enjoyable and unseasonably warm Saturday! After Morning Offering, Mick cleaned the kitchen and then did errands while I came upstairs to continue my office clean-up. By the middle of the afternoon I had finished the e-mail. I wrote:

• Gary, checking a couple of people who may not yet have gotten our Christmas cards because they were not in our database.

• Ian, thanking him for letting me know that Michele, our 101 cover artist, is currently moving and looking for a job, and consequently will be slow to finish the cover art.

• Tobey, arranging his family’s visit to L/L Research at Christmastime.

• Melissa, thanking her for sharing an e-mail from Michael Shane in Canada, who has been attempting to create a Law of One Community there. He ran into insurmountable obstacles with his first gambit and is now working on a second effort. Check it out at http://NewGoldenAge.ca. Shane recently gave our Avalon Farm enough mushroom plugs to try out mushroom farming in Kentucky.

• Wynn Free, thanking him for inviting me to speak on line by telephone to an Edgar Cayce group in Las Cruces, New Mexico in January and asking for specific dates.

• A dozen fans of my articles and friends, both personal and L/L-Research oriented, thanking people for kind words and/or sharing thoughts on personal issues.

It was terrific to see my Inbox empty for one shining moment! Then I finalized my Christmas Gift worksheet for 2008. I can put the Gift Booklet away now until 11 months or so from now! Whee!

I finished my afternoon by creating a new to-do list, intending, after I write my UPI article on Monday, to finish up the office clean-up by writing some thank-you notes and other snail mail.

Melissa spent her entire day wrapping presents, and one was prettier than the next. It means so much to me to have the presents we are giving so beautifully wrapped! And Mick spent his afternoon bringing Camelot's gardens to a fine state indeed! i took a walk around with Dan D. Lion McCarty-cat and enjoyed the beauty he had created.

Meanwhile, Gary spent much of his work day dealing with the www.bring4th.org site, testing it before its Christmas Day launch. He is very psyched about the site!

Mick and I shared a bath and then greeted Romi, who joined Gary, Mel and me for supper and the weekly L/L Research public meeting. Gary asked an interesting question on faith. I look forward to reading it when I edit the transcript. We included the Gaia Meditation prayer in the closing prayer of the channeling meditation.

2008-12-12

2008-12-13T08:03:00.002-05:00

Some days go otherwise than planned, and this was certainly one. Mel blew into town full of good energy, down from Avalon to help me with the present wrapping. I found out from Ian yesterday that Michele M, creator of the cover art for 101, had gone silent because she was both in the middle of a move and up against a deadline on a graphic art project for a client. This means that 101 will not be printed until after the New Year.

And that means that I cannot give that book to a number of folks on my gift list. Mel and I sat down right after Morning Offering and sorted out the dozen or so people for whom that book had been the intended present. We debated where to go to find these recipients alternative gifts and settled on Just Creations.

Just Creations is a store founded on the idea that many third world countries have beautiful, hand-crafted products but no good retail outlets. They cultivate relations with such handcraft makers among native populations and offer them an outlet. The store sells everything from hand-knitted clothing to pottery, stone work, jewelry, cards and everything in between, with a huge emphasis on Christmas items, this time of year. We prowled the store for about an hour and found whimsical and practical gifts for everyone. and each gift was unique and handmade.

We stopped for lunch at a tiny shop that sells panini and homemade soup, where we had the shrimp and corn chowder with our Panini American. Then we were off to Lowe’s, where Mel collected Mick’s big gift – a really good 17’ ladder – to Walgreen’s, where Mel found candy for our sanitation crew and collected some ribbons she needs, and finally to Garden Ridge, where Mel finished her collecting of Christmas bows and do-dads like berries and fir sprays with which to dress the packages. Our gifts have not looked so festive since my Mom died in 1991! Thank you, Mel!

We came home after 4:00 p.m. bearing our booty. While Mel organized things I managed to get upstairs, make my journal entries and have my chapel time before Mel needed me to sign the ”For/From” tags on the packages she had set out to wrap first – the packages to be mailed out of town.

In the cracks, I called the Subaru dealership and told the parts department what was amiss with Stanley. Stanley had suffered because of our encounter with the dog on our Nebraska trip. We are looking forward to adopting our future kitten, this dog’s soul, through reincarnation. That collision had damaged a plastic under-skirt to the front left fender, taken the bottom out of the windshield washer container and smashed the left front parking light. Subaru said they’d order the parts and have the Service Department call to make a repair appointment when the parts came in.

I wrote Doris, our business manager, by e-mail, asking for a pow-wow. And I fielded a call from Jan E, my nurse-practitioner who treats my interstitial cystitis. She wants an appointment with me, as it’s been a year since I saw her. I created a reminder to call her Monday in Outlook.

Meanwhile Mick worked solidly from Morning Offering until dark to tend to his customers. He is constantly being surprised this week at how many more leaves have fallen than he expected. “Where do they come from?” he asked me in wonder at bath time. “I see no leaves on the trees!” I had no answer! But I am thrilled at his extra work, since we need to pay our bills, and often the off-season is low on work to do, so we scrimp. So far, not this year!

After our bath, Mick and I came upstairs for some energy-sharing, Mick having most romantically made a date with me this morning. Ah, the wonder of that “old black magic”. As is my wont, I fell fast asleep in the afterglow and Mick had to awaken me for a late supper, after we had the Gaia Meditation. Mick offered the closing prayer tonight.

Then we caught a TV version of Mission Impossible 3, which we thoroughly enjoyed. Cruise produced this film and did the stunts himself, and he is both an excellent producer and an impressively athletic stuntman. I have a soft spot in my heart for him, since at one time, when he was in high school, he attended our weekly meditation meetings.

2008-12-11

2008-12-12T17:38:00.004-05:00

As the cold and gloomy skies lowered, after Morning Offering Mick started in with his customers of the day to clean up the last of their leaves, clean gutters and otherwise winterize their yards. He had expected to be finished at 5:00 p.m. but found himself, at 6:30, cleaning the last of the leaves from a customer’s yard in full darkness. He said he’d gotten the leaves in piles and could see them as light against the dark ground, so he was able to finish. Power to the Mick!!

Meanwhile I consulted with Gary on good dates for two upcoming L/L Research Gatherings, Channeling Intensive 4, which we will hold from February 5 to February 8, and a special Gathering in memory of Bob Reidel, which we will hold April 17-19, 2009, here at Camelot. The Reidel Gathering will have the theme of “Get Ready for 2012”. It was the subject of the Williamsburg, Virginia, Gathering which he was trying to put together when his final illness overtook him.

After getting the dates squared away, I wrote the text of the next issue of our Gatherings Newsletter and sent it on to Gary for his additions – Gare keeps track of the many study groups around the world that are focusing on TLOO.

Still intending to polish off the old e-mail before moving ahead, I continued responding to older e-letters. I wrote to:

• Ian, letting him know that Micheline, in translating 101 into French, found a misspelled word. He wrote back immediately saying that he would correct that.

• Gary, letting him know that the announcement of the launch of www.bring4th.org on Christmas Day which Ian put up on our archive web site looks just fine. BTW, please do log on then, or thereafter, and surf around to see all the goodies! I think there are greatly enhanced opportunities there for folks to write in and join in the community of seekers who have a love of TLOO in common. It is good to have friends to whom you can talk about the things that interest you!

• Aaron T, asking her if she would like to do a project of formatting my poetry and talking about service to others.

• Rachel Christenson, assuring her that her video, which you can see at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gUzwfIgtqSI, was great and offering, when our site is up, space for her to blog or join in the forums and talk about “Be Yourself”, another song which she and Peter Wale have composed.

• Dianne S, thanking her for sharing a very uplifting video of “Stand By Me” at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Us-TVg40ExM. Try it if you’d like your heart to open wide!

• Janet, Anne and Juls, thanking them each for keeping me posted when Bob Reidel was ill and letting them know about the Gathering in his memory.

• John Player in Britain, congratulating him on the acceptance of his book, This Troubled Earth: A World in Crisis, by a publisher and saying that if he really wants to ask about the reptilians, he can form a question for Q’uo, but that the Q’uo group generally refuses to answer specific questions or questions which are an active part of a seeker’s process. I suggested that he ask what spiritual principles to invoke when thinking about this issue. That reference to spiritual principles generally gets the best possible response.

Mick, Gary and I had a most pleasant, quiet evening. Gary worked late, having a ball using features of the new site in its test mode, trying to break it if he could, so that any glitches will be repaired before the site's l/launch. He was enthusiastic about webmaster Steve E's work on B4 in the extreme, about as stoked as I have ever seen him!

Gary offered the closing prayer at the Gaia Meditation tonight.

2008-12-10

2008-12-11T08:00:00.001-05:00

My first full day back home was spent, much more than I intended, in napping in my chair! After Morning Offering I came up to the office, sat down and was out like a light until lunch. After lunch I repeated the snooze! Fortunately, I was awakened by Romi’s call in mid-afternoon – I had called him just after Morning Offering to ask for help.

He guided me through the procedure for taking the computer settings off dial-up connection and back to recognizing the DSL. So I spent the rest of my work day posting my Camelot Journal entries from 11-30 to 12-09.

Mick blew in full of good energy at dusk, having put all of his Monday customers’ and one of his Tuesday customers’ lawns to bed for the year. He will come back just before Christmas for any touch-ups needed for party season, but all the leaves are down now except the stubborn oaks’, so his lawn care for the year is drawing to a close.

He has lots of other work to keep him busy, still, but this will probably be his last full week of lawn care. Mick says he’s already missing mowing! It's OK, Mick - spring is coming!

My one remaining relative on my mother’s side, Aunt Louise, sent her usual Christmas wreath from L. L. Bean today, and Mel has the icicle lights up across our porch, so we’re looking more festive by the day! Mick will add the rest of the house lights and the Christmas tree when he has the time.

After our bath, Mick took me to choir practice, where we are awash in Christmas carols and other special music of the season. It is all lovely! I am struggling to hit some of my higher notes – time for some vocal exercises before singing, I suppose.

I offered the closing prayer at the Gaia Meditation tonight.

2008-12-09

2008-12-10T17:53:00.002-05:00

It was misting and mizzling when we left The Isle of Capri Hotel, and so it continued all the day, sometimes storming or coming on to a steady, soaking rain, but always wet. Stanley was happy, driving in the wet, and we were happy moving along back to Camelot, our kitties and our own beds! Again I read Mick the paper as we drove, then the readings for our Morning Offering.

We drove straight through to Anthony’s Steak House east of Omaha, enjoyed a fine lunch there and then aimed Stanley for Louisville and drove the rest of the way home, arriving just as dusk was falling. We celebrated our arrival with one last restaurant meal, at the local Red Lobster, and then drove through the sweet, wet evening to Camelot.

I sat and patted kitties while Mick sorted out our traps, did the washing and in general got us unpacked and settled. We came together for the Gaia Meditation, at which Mick offered the closing prayer, and dessert. Then we said good night to Gary and came upstairs for a date, the second one in two days, but we were both more than ready to share some energy to celebrate arriving home! It was lovely, and we sank down into afterglow and then bedtime, offering praise and thanksgiving for a trip accomplished, an honor-duty well done and most of all, having each other as companions with whom we could see things through in the happiest of styles.

2008-12-08

2008-12-10T17:41:00.002-05:00

I had a tough night and was glad to see the dawn shine in! I tried to alleviate the stifling heat in my little guest bedroom by turning on the overhead fan, and awoke at four in the morning with a bad headache and parched throat. I gradually felt better as I wrote my journals and packed away Jennie Traveller for her trip home.

Mom and Mick both arose at seven, and we enjoyed Morning Offering together and said our good-byes to Mom. Then Mick packed us up and we headed down the road, rejoicing! We picked up rolls and juice for breakfast and then I read Mick the newspaper for about ninety minutes. As we passed the state line into Iowa, Mick said, “Escape from Nebraska! A new film starring Jim McCarty and Carla L. Rueckert! Their torture is utter boredom! And it kills! But, oh, so slowly!”

Laughter is so good for the soul!

We had pleasant weather, overcast and fifty-ish F, and no real traffic problems, except that between Lincoln and Omaha there was massive road work and we had to take care and go more slowly. As full dark fell, we arrived at Boonville and The Isle of Capri Casino and Hotel, our destination. We had a fine evening – baths and then dinner, and for dessert, each other! We shared some lovely energy and rested in the afterglow before spending the rest of the evening reading and watching some junk TV. I offered the closing prayer at the Gaia Meditation tonight.

2008-12-07

2008-12-10T17:28:00.002-05:00

We played hooky and stayed home from church today, which surprised me a bit since Mom is a regular church-goer. Today she wanted to stay home. So our morning and afternoon were all of a piece. After Morning Offering, I took a shower and then devoted myself for the rest of the work day to catching up on e-mail.

It was a very heartening and healing task, since I responded to eleven letters written by those who had written in to thank me for one or another of my UPI articles. I felt bathed in love and support!

In other letters I wrote:

• Steve M, who told me that he was contemplating salting his local book store with TLOO, and asked about a celebratory get-together for his study group in Chicago. I invited them to come to Camelot over a weekend when we had a channeling session.

• Monica L, who would like to sell her Kangen water ionizer in our on-line store. I assured her that we would like to do that, and after www.bring4th.or is launched on Christmas Day, I’ll talk to Steve E about the “Friends Of” section of our store. He may have gotten it up and running as he comes to launch; I don’t know and cannot check that until we get back to Camelot, since this dial-up connection here at Mom’s will not permit me access to the internet. I think the “Friends Of” section of the store will be fun. Lots of folks who enjoy our material are involved in fascinating and varied interests and we should develop a very interesting boutique of good products for the seeker who is shopping around.

• Jude, my beloved Aaron/Q’uo editor, telling her that we’ll have to shake Hampton Roads' tree soon, but I have a little hunch that says to wait till after New Years’ Day to do that. It is hard to wait and wait when we so wish that project to see the printed light of day. It is such beautiful material!

• Pupie, whose wedding I attended in 2005 in Britain – I turned that occasion for travel into a speaking tour and Vara and I had the best time going all over England. I spoke in Newcastle, London, Forest Row, Bath and St. Albans. Pupie appointed me her counselor during the ceremony, and wrote, concerned that I could no longer fill that role because of my health issues. I assured her that I can easily do anything that does not require moving around. She had suggested switching over to Mick as her counselor, and of course he would be wonderful. But Mick prefers that I continue. And I think I am probably a better fit.

• Rob Schwartz in Ohio, agreeing with him that we MUST visit in person one day – but not on this particular trip he is taking. Rob wrote me a very kind blurb for the back cover of 101 and is the author of Your Soul’s Plan: Discovering the Real Meaning of the Life You Planned Before You Were Born(www.YourSoulsPlan.com).

• Reverend Ruth Ann M, who asked about the Hadron Collector. I had not heard of that. I’ll have to get home before I can investigate it for her.

• My brother, Tommy, thanking him for his material from our song-and-story tapes and asking him to bring anything else he can find when he comes to Louisville for our Rueckert Family Christmas, over New Year's. I wrote those stories and lyrics back in the late seventies and early eighties, and we have moved twice since then. My own copies have gone missing. Tom suggested that we might consider re-doing them at some point, to get better performances down for posterity. I agreed, given that we can both find the time, and told him that Rick C, in Maine, who is a retired, Emmy-winning sound man with an illustrious career in Hollywood behind him, has offered to record me for free any time I wish, and he’d be glad to do the sound work for Tommy and me.

• Scott Mandelker, author and counselor to seekers, thanking him for the blurb he sent me for 101 and telling him that it came in after the back cover text was finalized, but that I will use his very kind words in the letter we send out to our mailing list when 101 is published. Scott has been teaching and traveling in Japan and Indonesia and did not get my request for a couple of months, until he arrived home to San Francisco at Thanksgiving

• Vara L-R, sending her the next Mosaic and Wisdom Poem from Dana Redfield’s Alphabet Mosaics so she can publish them in the next issue of Planet Light Worker (www.planetlightworker.com). Vara moved to Alaska recently with her husband, who is a soldier now deployed in Iraq. She shared tales of shoveling mountains of snow off her flat garage roof and feeding the grosbeaks and many other birds which thrive in the far north.

• Talitha L, thanking her for her absent Reiki healing.

• Gary, who sent me recipe changes for a recipe (Peas Creamed with Artichoke Hearts and Mushrooms) of which Micheline D in France had requested a copy. I incorporated Gary’s changes and sent him the recipe. Gary often creates changes in the recipes from my database as he cooks them, and I try to catch them in order to refine the recipes.

• Lorena L, thanking her for her news and telling her I looked forward to seeing her in January, when she will visit in order to get out the next Law of One for Prisoners (LOOP) Newsletter issue compiled, printed and mailed.

• Mel, thanking her for her newly compiled Avalon Contact and Avalon Solar Power worksheets, as well as for so very many wonderful things she has done lately, such as the great help at Thanksgiving and her present-wrapping, which she’s doing while Mick and I are away from home.

• Marcia McMahon, channel for Princess Diana and John Lennon as well as Jeshua, commiserating with her because at her recent speaking engagement in Chicago she was allowed only to talk about Jeshua. She said Princess Diana was miffed!

• Micheline D, thanking her for some very kind words and also for her translation of TLOO into French! She has finished that and it is available on www.llresearch.org now, in the Library section. She is now translating 101!

• Tom C, thanking him for his streusel muffin recipe. It looks delicious! I reworked it and formatted it and sent him back a finished copy of it.

• Daphne K, congratulating her on her recovery of health and her move to Alaska and thanking her for her kind words.

• Cynthya J, who wrote to offer to send a copy of her book, The Journey, for our Library. I told her we’d be delighted to receive that, and encouraged her to continue her writing. She is partway through a prequel to The Journey now but had gotten away from the writing for a while.

Meanwhile Mick and Mom enjoyed a Sunday’s worth of pro football and especially the announcement of the BCS placements – the big news of the day for those who love college football.

Mom took us out to P J’s Restaurant in Cozad, eleven miles west of here, for our last dinner together. The food was absolutely delicious! I had a prime rib sandwich – minus the bread for me – that was rare and tender, with some of the best French fries I have ever eaten. I was in food heaven tonight!

As I continued to work at responding to the e-mail in my Inbox, Mick got us packed and ready to go tomorrow morning. He also offered the closing prayer at the Gaia Meditation.

2008-12-06

2008-12-10T17:19:00.002-05:00

Mick loves football, and this is a Saturday at the height of the football season, so our main activity for the day was to watch lots and lots of football! The air was filled with commentators’ debates on which Heisman Trophy candidate was most deserving and how the BCS choices would pan out on December 8th, as well as the roar of the crowds in the many games of which we saw at least a part. The glorious glut did not end until Oklahoma finished soundly thwacking its opponent around eleven p.m., making it later than Sooner!

However, the games did not start early, so after Morning Offering, Mick and I decided to go downtown and have some authentic Mexican food, having espied a sign announcing the Esperanza Café. We entered the place to find it mostly bare, with half a dozen round tables along the sides of the store, and a wide open expanse of bare floor in the middle. Off to the right and perhaps 30 feet away from the front door stood a man of color tending to a series of chafing dishes on a table. There were some Spanish-looking decorations, dusty and tatty, here and there along the walls, and wonderful music was playing on a CD player – not Hispanic but African.

We found out that these men – and there were only men in the place – I supposed that I was fortunate to be served – were Somalis. Somehow, perhaps through a church group, these men had been brought over to America, to Grand Island, Nebraska, a town halfway between here and Lincoln, Nebraska to the east, expecting to find employment waiting. However the employment was not forthcoming, so the men were sent to Lexington to work here at the meat-packing plant.

A very pleasant man came to us almost wringing his hands, concerned that we might not enjoy their food. We said we’d like to try it – could we see a menu? No, there were no menus. Instead he gave us a sample of some nicely spiced chicken with every fresh vegetable in the grocery stewed with it. We assured the man that we liked it just fine, and proceeded to have an adventurous hour eating chicken stew with herbed rice, listening to the wonderful music and dropping in on a completely different culture, where people ate with their hands from a common bowl and had lively conversations – in Somali, I imagine - amid much laughter.

While I was out and about, I called Gary to let him know that I cannot get e-mail here, so when the book cover for 101 is finalized, to have Ian call me, not e-mail me, with the news, and for Gary to do likewise if anything comes up. The Bean Man reported that all was quiet on the home front, but that we have great news – our www.bring4th.org webmaster, Steve E, is now counting down to launching the site on Christmas Day!

Finally! Steve and his wife had their fifth – and last – child recently and is sleep-deprived as well as working two jobs, so we are fortunate indeed that he has managed somehow to get the site up and ready. Steve told Gary that he got a vasectomy last month in order to stop him and his wife from “going forth and multiplying” any more.

The features of our spiritual activism site are many and include live chat as well as forums. There is a calendar and I will post to it the times when I can answer questions live, something I’ve wanted to offer for years.

I spent the forepart of my work day readying the session which Mick had chosen for the winter 2008 Light/Lines Newsletter for publication and then writing the Comments section we always put at the end of the channeled session. It took me until mid-afternoon. It is a very interesting discussion of the dynamics of the priestly or initiatory self and the everyday self, stemming from one of Gary’s excellent questions. I think it will make a good newsletter.

Then I started in on the backlog of e-mail. I have not been able to receive any e-mail since we arrived in Nebraska. I suppose that the available dial-up is too slow to allow the mail to come through in the time I am willing to keep Mom’s telephone line hooked into the computer. She has no “minutes” plan, so Romi gave me a dial-up number that charges eight cents a minute, hopefully a better rate than she would get otherwise – but that cost mounts up, and apparently I’d have to leave the connection running all day in order to receive my new mail.

But that’s OK, since I have a big backlog from before November 30th, when we left Louisville. I wrote

• Rick in Maine, to thank him for his minestrone recipe, which included some potato and pasta, both ingredients which seen to me like good additions to the recipe I have. He also included some interesting spices, which I also added to our recipe. I sympathized with him over his grape harvest, which was entirely eaten by deer. And I sent him in return the recipe for the breakfast casserole we had served on Thanksgiving Friday, as it was very good. Rick is an inveterate cook and makes wonderful food!

• Barbara B in Michigan, to send her a reference from The Law of One which she needs for the book on healing which she is writing.

• Elihu E, to respond to his request for an evaluation of channeling from a group called Cosmic Paradigm (http://www.cosmicparadigm.com/Mark's_Corner/). I told him that I found the channeling quite mixed in polarity and did not recommend that he give it serious consideration. When a channeling source promises to appear in our skies and fix our troubles, it is happily interfering with our free will, which is not a mark of Confederation sources.

• Frank O, to thank him for his new e-mail address and to talk about the Kirking of the Tartan service which St. Luke’s has annually on November 30th, St. Andrew’s Day. Frank was reminiscing about his years as a bagpiper for the police force of which he was a part for many years.

I offered the closing prayer at the Gaia Meditation tonight.

2008-12-05

2008-12-10T17:14:00.002-05:00

The Nebraska skies warmed today into the thirties F, a fine relief from the single digits of yesterday. However the sun never broke through thick clouds as weather passed to our north, so it was a gray old day. After Morning Offering I wrote my journals and had chapel time aplenty. Then I spent the remainder of my day editing two recent channeling sessions. I am beginning to catch up the backlog now, having only a Channeling Circle session and two song-and-story tape transcripts left to edit.

Mick and I did a bit of shopping today, enjoying the cosmopolitan feel of Spanish spoken all around us. I had the need of two changes of clothing, since part of the clothes I had gotten out to bring did not get packed, and I found a great cowgirl blouse at the farm store and a turtleneck and a couple pairs of jeans at Chez Wal-Mart.

Mick found winter work gloves to replace the pair he has now, which are decorated along four of the fingers with duct (duck) tape, since the leather had cracked (quacked).

I also did a bit of shopping for Mom McCarty, successfully hunting down undergarments that matched the ones she likes from the veritable jungle of thongs, bikinis, tap pants and high-tops. If there is one thing Wal-mart excels in, it is its vast selection of panties!

I think there tends to be a cultural difference between Gringos and Latinos in that the Hispanic people in Wal-mart were quite conscious of me in my wheelchair and moved away gladly, smiling a greeting, so Mick could push the chair where we needed to go, whereas the Caucasians tended not to see me in the chair.

This is also true back home, on Sundays, when Mick tries to push my chair from the chancel steps to the ramp, which is halfway down the nave. Sometimes we wait for several minutes for people to become aware of our need, as they clump in groups and enjoy each others’ company. It speaks well for the Hispanic culture! In terms of Plotkin’s book, Nature and the Human Soul, they are more soulcentric, whereas the white culture is more egocentric.

We scouted out the three blocks or so of downtown Lexington for a Mexican restaurant, since I figure this is a great chance for me to eat some authentic Mexican food. Seventy percent of the population of Lexington is Hispanic. We found a promising café downtown and will go there for lunch tomorrow. My store of Spanish is small – I know to ask where the bathroom and the airport are and can say hello, how are you – but you need no words at all to enjoy good food!

Mick offered the closing prayer at the Gaia Meditation tonight.

2008-12-04

2008-12-10T17:09:00.001-05:00

This was the coldest day yet, hovering in the high teens for much of the day. After Morning Offering, I went through my Inbox with an eye to deleting spam and already-handled business and had a good morning hitting the delete button. Whee!

I had just started on editing another recent transcript when Mick suggested we go visit Dad McCarty’s grave. We got a single white rose and also Mom’s artificial wreath with a big Christmas bow, which she likes to put out each holiday season at his grave. It is mounted on a holder which is designed to spike into the ground on each side.

I had intended to stay by the grave while Mick set the wreath in place, but I had foolishly neglected to wear my hat and gloves, or the underskirt to my skirt, and I got cold fast! So I stayed in the car while Mick got Dad all fixed up for Christmas. It’s interesting that Mom does not put up any Christmas decorations at the house – only by Dad’s grave in the cemetery.

I looked out over the field of gravestones and my eye was caught by the festive atmosphere there. The people around here have the custom of placing artificial bouquets by their loved ones’ graves, and the field was alive with color. I flashed on Our Town, which is set in a cemetery, and visualized the inhabitants of those graves floating around chatting and passing the time together most enjoyably.

When we returned I went back to the editing and sent in the finished transcript near suppertime. It was an excellent session, mostly because it was such an intriguing and good question by Gary, who is the best questioner we have had since Don was alive. He is a natural scholar, reading and re-reading the LOO texts and forming questions as he goes. Consequently his queries are always ad rem and give the Q’uo group lots to chew over as they respond.

This question had to do with the seeming disconnect between the Ra’s description of the initiatory attitude of leaving all except the love of the Creator behind, and the instruction elsewhere in the material to experience all things desired. It may well be our next newsletter.

I have continued to be unable to coax Jennie Traveller into recognizing the fact that I am on line. I can send e-mail but cannot access the internet – I do not know why! So I cannot post my Camelot Journal entries. I apologize to those who are used to reading these daily entries about the life and times of L/L Research and its little family! When I finally get back to Camelot on December 10th, I shall post them all, but they will be too much to read, I fear, at least at one go!

Mick’s cousin Shirley and her husband, Babe – not blue, but somewhat of an ox – are very good to Mom. Shirley calls in once a day just to be sure Mom, who is now 91, is OK. And if anything is needed, they drive Mom where she needs to go. So Mick and I are very grateful, and we always make a point of asking them to dinner when we are here in Nebraska. Tonight we took them to The Vet’s Club Steak House, a very nice restaurant here in town, and enjoyed a lovely dinner together.

I offered the prayer at the Gaia Meditation tonight.

2008-12-03

2008-12-10T17:07:00.001-05:00

Stiff winds overnight brought through a cold front here in the middle of Nebraska. Lincoln got its first snow of the season, but we stayed dry, thank heavens. After Morning Offering, Mick got back to the Christmas card project, finishing the stuffing of the envelopes.

I spent most of my day working unsuccessfully to clear the computer glitches that are currently bedeviling Jennie Traveller. I got my journal entries made and decided to do some editing, but then the Outlook software seized up and I could not get into the Inbox to retrieve the transcripts I was preparing to edit. All of nature seemed to conspire to keep me off the computer today.

Romi called at lunchtime to guide me through the set-up of the dial-up function and that was accomplished, which is a blessing indeed! However the software does not recognize the connection for some reason, so I cannot post to my Camelot Journal blog or use the internet for searches and so forth. I shall try again tomorrow. Eventually I stopped struggling with poor Jennie, gave her the rest of the day off, and thoroughly enjoyed reading a couple of silly romances instead!

I offered the closing prayer at the Gaia Meditation tonight.

2008-12-02

2008-12-10T17:03:00.001-05:00

Our first full day in Nebraska dawned cold and moody, sunshine one moment and overcast the next. After Morning Offering, Mick set up the card table in the far corner of the living room and began the long job of putting together the Christmas cards – folding the cards, folding the Christmas letters, inserting the letters in the cards and the cards in the envelopes, sealing the envelopes and stamping them. He got most of the cards in the envelopes by the end of the day.

I occupied myself by dozing the morning away despite my efforts to stay alert and be useful. Eventually I got the Camelot Journal entry written, had my chapel time and wrote/channeled the Holly Journal for today. Then I tried to get on the internet. First the mouse would not work in the kitchen, and then – and this was the stopper – I could get a dial tone but did not have the right number for accessing my dial-up connection outside of Kentucky.

I put in a call to Romi in the evening. Hopefully he will call me tomorrow and talk me through the process of configuring the software to work here for dial-up.

Mom, as is her wont, enjoyed a day of television. She likes the soaps, the game shows and those talk shows where people talk over each others’ sentences and out-shout each other. Sigh!

We took Mom to the best steak house anywhere around, Grandpa’s Steak House in Kearney, Nebraska, for her birthday dinner. She and I both enjoyed the country-fried steak, while Mick opted for a pork chop that looked as though it came from a six-foot pig! The food was delicious and Mom opened her presents from us – a pair of earrings with a matching necklace and a lush red velour “sweat suit” in which one is clearly not expected to sweat.

After I put in my call to Romi, we settled into watching Thunderheart, a film starring Val Kilmer and Sam Shepard. It was a good FBI mystery, set on a Sioux reservation and featuring some authentic Native American faces and accents as well as a good plot and atmospheric cinematography and direction. Kilmer did a fine job of portraying a man torn between his Native American roots and his current urban lifestyle to the point where he tries to ignore a vision. An Indian friend says to him, “Some people go all their lives without a vision, and you had one!” How true it is that we must pay honor and attention to our visions!

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

2008-11-30 and 12-01

2008-12-10T16:51:00.002-05:00

Mick and I awoke early and began getting ready for the trip to Nebraska, having decided to do our Morning Offering in the car. So we satisfied ourselves with just the meditation and prayer before Mick began finalizing the packing and I wrote my journal entries, had my chapel time and packed up the computer and printer for travel.

It is always a wrench to leave home. We snuggled with Chloe, Pickwick and Dan D. Lion and got away by 9:30 a.m. There was a chilly rain to bid us good-bye as we left Kentucky for Indiana, then Illinois and then Missouri. The air was heavy with rain and the skies were lowering, with the cloud cover too thick to permit any sense of the shapes of the clouds. This made all the colors dark and sober. It felt, as we approached the plains after crawling though St. Louis in heavy traffic, as though we were driving on the floor of a great sea, through water instead of air.

Stanley, like all cars, enjoyed driving in the wet and Mick and I were conversing and enjoying our morning when a young dog about the size of a greyhound but with the look of a golden retriever ran straight at our car from across the expressway. He was looking neither right nor left but had an air of gaiety and excitement as he impacted our left front wheel panel and instantaneously ended his physical life. It was a real shock to us both, not to mention to the beautiful dog. We were so grateful that he had no time to suffer!

Jim and I both meditated on his death, praying for his immediate retrieval into blessed light. Mick got the distinct impression that this dog had chosen Mick as his instrument for changing from this life to the life to come because he wanted to be with Mick. We decided to begin looking for a little kitten with this sweet dog’s gaiety and brightness of nature as soon as we get home from Nebraska, so that we can bring this sweet and gladsome soul into our home and give him – or her – lots of love and perhaps invest him for graduation into third density.

We enjoyed our first meal on the road at a Denny’s near Evansville, Indiana. We love that place! We always stop there and always get the same thing – a senior country-fried steak for me and a Belgian waffle and strawberries and whipped cream for Mick. I swear by Denny’s country-fried steak as being the best prepared anywhere.

We saw the rains finally stop for a while near St. Louis, but we were delayed a good bit in holiday traffic and off our schedule by over an hour even before we hit a massive foul-up on I-70. We stayed with the stop-and-slow cars for an hour’s time before deciding to try to find a way around the snarl.

After that, things fell apart fast! We tried twice to outrun the traffic jam on side roads and then rejoin the expressway at an exit down the road, but traffic was still stopped even a half-hour down the road. So we decided to try an alternate route, but got lost. We ended up taking a room in O’Fallon, Missouri and canceling our reservations in Boonville.

We were exhausted! We rested for an hour and then hunted up a fine dinner at a nearby restaurant that was entirely local and home-grown, where we enjoyed a beautifully cooked steak sandwich (me) and a generous half-rack of ribs (Mick) before coming back to the room and conking out, most grateful for good pillows and firm mattresses.

Today Mick awoke early and got me up for a shower after he had bathed. By the time I was finished, he had all our traps packed away and again we made our Morning Offering in the car. We breakfasted well on juice and rolls en route and then I read Mick the paper. By 11:00 a.m. we had made back our lost distance and felt as though we were back on track.

The weather sweetened and the skies gradually cleared as the day wore on. First came “sucker holes”, small openings in the overcast through which one could see blue sky. Elkins used to tell me that inexperienced pilots would often take their planes up through those holes, only to find that they had no way to get back down through the overcast – hence the name.

We stopped at the Red Lobster in St. Joseph. Missouri, for lunch, enjoying a lobster pizza (me) and a mixed seafood grill (Mick). When we got back in the car, the clouds had began to have definition and separate shapes, and the sun began to peer through the clouds in Sunday-school rays. The rest of the trip was simply lovely. The sunset was long and beautiful with notes or orange, aqua, mauve, yellow and red. We hit full dark as we came into Nebraska at last, having slid up into Iowa briefly near Council Bluffs before heading west on I-80.

At Grand Island, we stopped at Bosselmann’s Truck Stop, which boasts a restaurant well-known to Nebraskans like Mick, and there we enjoyed a quesadilla (me) and a smothered burrito (Mick). My quesadilla wins a blue ribbon as the best I ever tasted! We’d been saving our leftovers all along and will enjoy several good leftover lunches at Mom’s!

At the last of the trip, we were entranced and enchanted by the sky’s gift of a sliver of moon with a huge nimbus glowing golden around it, and lower and off to the right, Venus glowing brightly with Jupiter, dimmer and smaller, to its right. I have seldom seen a lovelier night sky. The new moon with two stars away! It is the stuff of fairy tales, a magical and healing sign for us.

Mom welcomed us close to 10:00 p.m. with cake and ice cream and lots of hugs. Mick got everything put away while I, pretty much at the end of my stamina, sat down to relax and fell fast asleep. Mick roused me for a late Gaia Meditation, at which he offered the closing prayer, and we fell into sleep around midnight, our time – 11:00 p.m. Nebraska time.

The impact of the dog broke out our parking light on the left front side and punctured our window washer container under the hood, so we shall be seeking out a good repairman at Mom’s.

2008-11-29

2008-11-30T07:22:00.005-05:00

It was a cloudy and rather forbidding day, chilly and lowering, which matched my sentiments at having to trek cross-country to spend money and time in Nebraska when my idea of holidays includes things like sunshine and the ocean! Or mountains and a lake! Anything but time in a small, unhappy town which smells of the meat-packing plant that dominates the economy and brings in the Hispanic people. Unfortunately the city fathers and mothers have no intention of welcoming diversity, so the Hispanic population has formed its own community and the atmosphere is uneasy.

Of course there is the honor/duty of spending time with McMom, Mick’s mother, whose 91st birthday we will celebrate with her. We are blessed to be able to pamper her. She is the last of our parents, my parents having died in 1988 and 1991, and Jim’s dad having died seven years ago now. So we will soldier on!

And the trip itself will be a delight! It’s a true treat to spend all day with Mick instead of just the evening hours. And we’ll have two days of driving to get there; two days of companionship and that sense of euphoria we always have when we are together.

After Morning Offering, I came upstairs to finish the last transcript of recent channeling sessions which was in my Inbox, wishing to close out my more urgent duties before leaving. It was an interesting special session requested by a guy who is working with technology to create machines that help people achieve a good state of meditation.

I had lunch at the Cheddar Box Restaurant, a sandwich shop in Middletown, with a friend from St. Luke's, Laurinda S. This kind and generous lady found out that I was stuck with a knitting project. In the middle of knitting a baby blanket for Kori D's infant last year, my shoulders gave out. Laurinda finished the knitting for me! Fortunately the blanket came out large enough to cover a toddler!

I wanted to do something nice to thank her, and her favorite restaurant is the Cheddar Box. Voila! We enjoyed each other thoroughly and had a good meal. Their tomato-artichoke soup and pimiento cheese sandwich were gourmet quality, with warm, soft, toasted bread and home-made mayonnaise for the sandwich and lots of lovely herbs in the soup. I have not eaten there before, but I will do so again!

Then I went to Absolutely Salon for a manicure, wanting to be groomed for the trip. The nail color, of course, was lavender - with sparkles! I have difficulty with ingrown fingernails and Bethany was a wonder at relieving the soreness and getting me all shipshape.

I think I shall have to start getting manicures every two weeks instead of every four weeks, as this problem has gotten a lot worse as I get older. They talk of older people as being ‘long in the tooth’, but in my case it’s ‘round in the fingernails’!

The bulk of my time today was spent packing. I did watch some football with Mick, especially the Oklahoma – Oklahoma State game, which was a terrific and sometimes even elegant game, in between periods of clothes gathering, putting together my bath kit and so forth.

I can only work for a short time before having to rest, so the progress was slow, but by bedtime I was all packed except for my office things –the computer and its accessories, my letter box and other work I am taking with me, and the printer. I will pack these things after I write my journal entries tomorrow early. We should have an easy time of it, getting away on time tomorrow in late morning.

I offered the closing prayer at the Gaia Meditation.

2008-11-28

2008-11-29T08:08:00.002-05:00

After Morning Offering, at which Phell and Mel joined Mick and me, Mick set out on his somewhat abbreviated Friday rounds – abbreviated both because he has put some Friday customers’ yards to bed already and because a couple of customers had company and wished him to wait until after our return from Nebraska to touch up their yards.

When he came home around 2:00 p.m., he embarked on a marvelous clean-up of our gutters. Then he blew all the leaves where he could mulch them, and cleaned up the Camelot acre so that it looks splendid. And for a finale, he planted the porch flower boxes with pansies, with lots of purple in them in honor of my Purple Winter – I get my hair colored purple on December 23rd!

While Mel played hostess for Phell and Eric, a role at which she excels, I got the Bacon and Egg Casserole with Gruyere and Parmesan Cheeses through its final bake and reheated the biscuits from last night by sprinkling them with water in a paper bag and refreshing them in the microwave. The casserole was a huge success!

We continued conversing until after 11:00 a.m., at which time Eric and his Mom set out on a round of shopping, looking for cheap bulk foods. They are somewhat alarmed about the economy and want to have 3 months of food laid away Just In Case! I admit that I prefer to be more optimistic about how things will pan out. They drove back to Marion County directly after that, so we said good-bye before they shopped. They are wonderful guests, old, old friends with lots to say and always full of fun.

I came upstairs after they left to have my chapel time and write my Holly Journal entry for today, then corrected the recipes we had cooked for Thanksgiving to reflect our additions and changes.

Then I got out my Christmas Gift List and massaged it, putting the giftees into five groups – two girl friends get their own bags, as I will see them in person. The third group is Christmas Day people. The fourth group is Rueckert Christmas people. And the fifth group is those to whom we will mail the presents.

I also printed out my travel sheets, which guide me in getting all my gear ready to pack. I prepared these lists some years ago to avoid forgetting to pack necessities. I will work on crossing items off those lists tomorrow.

While we are gone, Mel, bless her heart, will wrap the presents and place them in their groups for Mick’s ease in handling them when we come home on December 9th.

Mick spent the rest of his afternoon watching his favorite game of the year, the Nebraska game. This year it was versus Colorado and to Mick’s delight, Bo Pelini’s team fought back a marvelously resilient Colorado team to win 40-31! The highlight of the game was an improbable 57-yard field goal swacked in by Alex Henery. Then Husker end Ndamukong Suh intercepted a Buffalo pass and ran it back 30 yards for the game-cinching touchdown. Mick was in alt!

Meanwhile I fiddled with the Christmas letter which we like to enclose in our cards until it fit on the page, and printed them out on the Christmas computer stationary Mick found. Now we’re all set for Mick to put the cards together in Nebraska.

Mick and I bathed at half-time and said good-bye to Mel after the game – she helped Mick cheer the Huskers on – and then came upstairs for a lovely date, after which I went sound asleep. Mick roused me for supper and the Gaia Meditation, at which he offered the closing prayer.

2008-11-27

2008-11-28T07:19:00.002-05:00

Happy Thanksgiving! We had a lovely day of it here and I hope you did as well. The weather cooperated, warming up into the 50s F and beaming with sunshine.

Mick worked a full day, setting out after Morning Offering just as Mel was coming in, having driven down from Avalon to spend a couple of days at Camelot. She was still unnerved after her visitation by stewed coon hunters last night, but a bit of conversation with me, a shower and a cup of coffee brought her into the present moment and she and I had a good morning, baking the Cream Cheese Brownie Pies and getting the Artichoke Spinach Pinwheels to the rolled-up-and-in-the-fridge stage before lunch.

After our lunch break we went back and put the Bacon and Egg Casserole with Gruyere Cheese together and gave it its first baking. It is a two-stage recipe, designed so that you can make it the day before you use it and just pop it in the oven for 10 minutes when morning comes. We organized the biscuits, put the turkey in the oven, made the gravy and then welcomed our guests.

The first to arrive was Romi, bearing a couple of bottles of wine, Pinot Grigio for me and Merlot for him. After Thanksgiving hugs he was off to do some computer maintenance. Mick blew in at that point, smelling like evergreens, as he had been trimming them for a customer. Mick and I had a quick bath together just as Eric and his Mom, Phellis, arrived, making our company complete.

The turkey came out right on schedule, and we popped the appetizers in the oven and then heated up Gary’s and Jim’s dishes – Sweet Potatoes and Apples in a Maple Glaze, Sweet Peas and Portabella Mushrooms in Alfredo Sauce and Enhanced Stove-Top Stuffing. And we found a pretty serving spoon for the Cranberry Orange Relish.

We enjoyed the pinwheels and some wine as we talked about everything under the sun, from Obama and the economy to health problems and doctors to Avalon and its doings. At 7:30 we heated the biscuits and declared that Thanksgiving Dinner was ready.

There ensued an hour-long, fairly silent pause while we just enjoyed the feast! I do think that this occasion is at least partially about the food! There is a celebration of the senses in the wonderful tastes and odors of good food, laden with spices and herbs and lovingly prepared, that is a wonderful ritual.

Eventually we had to give it up – we were too full to eat another bite! Mel got out the Trivial Pursuit game and we had a spirited match which I won – for the first time in years! Mick is usually the winner, with his incredible memory for details. But I got lucky tonight!

The conversation continued, flowing gently around the group as we cut the pies and had tea, coffee or Bailey’s, which Eric and Phell had brought. At 9:00 we paused for a brief Gaia Meditation. I offered the closing prayer tonight.

I gazed around the room as it glowed in the lamplight. Our beloved friends had come to make this day the wonderful time of thanks-giving that the title of the day promises, and I felt so very blessed! Each person is so special – Eric the eternal rebel and information junkie, Phell the C-Span watcher and lover of the outdoors, Romi the sophisticated world traveler who retains a touching and perhaps permanent naiveté and innocence of spirit, Melissa the beautiful, delicate sprite whose every dream and vision is of a far better world and whose pioneer hands are busy in the earth, on the chain-saw and driving the huge old Massey-Ferguson tractor.

And of course my most beloved St. James, my rock and fortress on this earth, whose soul and body dances all the day, whether with the devas and nature spirits or with his imagination, as he lives his rhythmic, priestly life. How I adore that man! He brings me infinite beauty and shows me the Christed Creator.

Thank you, Lord, for all!

2008-11-26

2008-11-27T07:05:00.004-05:00

The sun came back today to make it feel psychologically warmer, if not actually so. After Morning Offering Mick set out on a full round of work, turning a good many leaves into mulch by the end of the day, and bagging many more for those customers who prefer their leaf removal done that way. As well, he finally was able to finish the window-covering for a customer with many, many windows in her huge old farmhouse.

I covered myself with glory by falling asleep in my chair not once but twice! However, I did manage to have my precious chapel time, write my journals and collect a good-looking recipe from the newspaper for Cranberry Bread Pudding with Butter Rum Sauce. That sounds like a natural for Christmas!

And I wrote the annual Christmas letter, which we like to enclose with our Christmas cards. In the evening, Mick OK’d it. Gary printed out our address labels before he departed to enjoy Thanksgiving Day with his Dad and his Dad’s family down south. On Saturday, Mick will find some nice computer-type Christmas paper and we’ll print out the letter.

Mick likes to get the cards processed and mailed while we are visiting in Nebraska each year. He likes to be busy, and his Mom’s sedentary lifestyle gets to him after a few dozen naps! So he relishes setting up the somewhat rickety card table and folding, licking and stamping to his heart’s content!

I composed short explanations for the cover design, not just for 101 but also for 102 and 103 and sent them on to Ian. How’s that for looking ahead? While he was finalizing the cover for 101, he creatively wished to unify the designs for the other two covers in this Living the Law of One series. When I eventually write the other books – and that’s planned – we’ll have our cover art already waiting! I loved doing this little task, and felt that it was a magical envisioning of a positive future!

Our quiet evening was torn by difficulties on Avalon. It is hunting season, and Kentucky is replete with “good old boys” whose idea of hunting is to shine their flock of flashlights on raccoons and such and drink themselves silly while potting at the critters with rifles and handguns. They used bad judgment in trespassing on our land, not just at the borders but coming close enough to the cabin to scare Mel silly.

So with her can of mace in one hand and her phone in the other, she called the police and they came quickly, assessed the situation and with a bull horn, asked the roisterers to come forward. The hapless yokels faded from sight and hearing, until the police left, and then started all over again.

It is fortunate that drinking spirits to excess puts a natural limit on how long the imbibers can stay awake, so all the brouhaha stopped about a half hour later. Mel said she felt as though she were in a sitcom, but was too frightened to laugh!

We talked by telephone a couple of times during the incident. She is OK, just shaken. Melissa is far too sensitive to shrug something like this off easily, and I am just glad that tomorrow is Thanksgiving, and she will be here with us, enjoying a quiet and restorative visit in our loving, peaceful nest.

I offered the closing prayer at the Gaia Meditation tonight.

2008-11-25

2008-11-26T07:14:00.000-05:00

While the sky lowered and the temperature hovered around freezing, after Morning Offering Mick set out on his full day of gutter-cleaning and leaf-crunching, returning home at dusk pleased with his accomplishments. He is making room for Thanksgiving by mowing ahead, and I am most grateful.

I had a pleasant and quiet day. In the morning I created an outline for my UPI article on angels and in the afternoon I wrote it and posted it to the www.religionandspirituality.com site. It was fun to write it, as I shared memories of the angels in my life.

After our bath we enjoyed Amy Goodman’s Democracy Now, as she filled us in on the background of the banking crisis and the auto company crisis. The consensus of the three guests was that Obama will need to be far more radical in his changes, or nothing will be altered economically.

I hope he thinks of FDR and takes the bull **** by the horns. It does not make sense to me to give money to the same incompetent and greedy people who upscrod so royally that their companies are failing. New people need to take over these companies before money is given.

Romi joined us for dinner and the Gaia Meditation, at which he offered the closing prayer.

2008-11-24

2008-11-25T07:02:00.002-05:00

The Ohio River Valley area around Louisville has a largely moderate and pleasant climate, but it can produce some bad old days, and today was one of them. It was the classic Louisville winter day, misting and mizzling and about 40 F. After Morning Offering, Mick went out into it and climbed on four different roofs, cleaning gutters as he went, and changing clothes a couple of times when he eventually got soaked through. He was thrilled with the day, though, for he cleaned seven yards today and is two jobs up on the week. This bodes well for our Thanksgiving Day!

I focused all day on doing the research for the article on angels with which I shall close out this four-part series on the Confederation of Angels and Planets in the Service of the Infinite Creator and its interactions with humankind. It's the response to the second of JoyousChee's excellent questions. He has been publishing my articles in his e-zine, www.cosmiclighthouse.com, for two years now, and I have wanted to show my thankfulness by taking up his questions.

By bath time I had gone through the archives and had ten solid pages of quotes. I should be able to write my article tomorrow in good style. I was tickled to get the searches done!

Elihu E sent me a very good article by Michael Ventura which he had written for the Austin Chronicle on November 21st on Paradox Obama. The address is http://www.austinchronicle.com/gyrobase/Issue/column?oid=oid%3A704745. It was the best look at the campaign I have seen.

Mick and I got together in the evening for a good soaking bath and then a date. We played with the energy as we exchanged it, starting slowly, like a good jazz riff, and gradually heating up the tempo and rhythm until we were scintillating with light. What a blessing to be in this world! And with this good, good man. After a peaceful snuggle and a nap for me, we came downstairs to share dinner and the Gaia Meditation. Mick offered the closing prayer tonight.

2008-11-23

2008-11-24T10:32:00.003-05:00

There was a skiff of snow on roofs and car tops when Mick took me to church today, but it warmed up into the 40s F, although it remained cloudy all day. Only the wild honeysuckle and the willows still have green leaves now, and the sparse dry, dead leaves skitter across the cold streets in the wind. It begins to feel like winter at last!

We sang a jazzy arrangement of the old spiritual, “Are You Anchored in the Lord?” today, which was great fun. I love our parish so much! When I went to my previous church, I was left to work out how to move my music stand and chair when the choir moved, and often I simply did not sing when they moved, since I could not figure out any logistics that worked in the time allotted. At St. Luke’s today, Monica L got my stand, Lisa, the choirmistress, had set a chair for me before the service and Doug M offered an arm and elegantly ushered me down the chancel steps. I am bathed in love there! Thank you, Lord!

And I remember when an L/L friend came from up east to help me set up my office in the winter of 2006. He is a fine singer, and the choir took him in with hugs of welcome when he practiced with us that week. Fun is always had in our choir, as well as the creation of hopefully beautiful and sacramental music.

We began our first film for today, Eastern Promises, with lunch, after seemingly endless dickering with our increasingly cranky DVD player. It was a grimy, gritty, atmospheric story of immigrants from Russia who come to London hoping for a new life, only to become swallowed up by the Russian mafia. The movie portrayed brutish acts by people of limited intelligence and lean hope and its ironic ending put the stamp on its bleak premise, that the promises of new life in a new land were almost all false.

It reminded me somewhat of The Seventh Seal, an Ingmar Bergman film decades old, which portrayed the same feeling of hopelessness, with the figure of the child, or the family with the child, as the only beacon of hopeful possibility.

Viggo Martensen offered a lovingly detailed portrayal of his seedy and unsympathetic character and I salute him for a superb acting job. As well, the music and production values were sensitive to the aura the director, David Cronenberg, was seeking. The pace, however, was sometimes halting and the plot confused before it edified at times. It is a film worth seeing, but it never quite came into the focus I believe was intended.

We watched the second film immediately afterwards. It was eerie how thematically similar the two films were! And Mick had selected them from shelves on opposite sides of the video store.

Transsiberian was set in Russia, where a company of Americans are concluding a tour of that country with the long train ride from Vladivostok on Russia’s eastern coast to Moscow, where they shall depart for home. And what a clever, nicely detailed and skillfully paced and directed mystery story it was!

Woody Harrelson offered a nuanced and finely tuned portrayal of the innocent American who responds in unexpected ways to the challenges offered, becoming an unlikely hero when his wife’s life is threatened. Ben Kingsley stole the show as the seemingly affable Russian detective who is more, and other, than he appears to be.

The ensemble surrounding these two players was thoroughly professional and the direction, by writer Brad Anderson, was masterful. The production values, especially the music, were excellent as well. For those who love a mystery, this is a good movie to see.

I was feeling poorly and came upstairs to rest for a while after our double feature. Mick, however, was industrious, getting lots of chores knocked out with his typical grace and style. He even managed to help me with my collection of nail polishes. It is kept in a large plastic container, so when I want to select a polish, all I can see easily are the tops of the bottles of polish. I wanted to put a daub of the color from each bottle on its applicator top. Mick got that all done, and with a technique far swifter than the one I had envisioned. Thank you, St. James!

We came together when I awoke from my nap. Mick was just finishing his weekly call to Mom McCarty. We came upstairs and planned the Thanksgiving meal together before descending for supper and the Gaia Meditation, at which Mick offered the closing prayer.

2008-11-22

2008-11-23T07:41:00.003-05:00

This was the coldest morning of the season, down in the teens! Fortunately for the Mick-Man, it is Saturday, and his work after Morning Offering on Saturdays is to scrub the kitchen after the week’s cooking has been accomplished. It is warm inside!

Then he went on his rounds of errands, coming back at lunchtime with a meal for me designed to ease my tummy woes – White Castle burgers. Others may swear by this or that brand of laxative, but give me White Castles any day for efficient easing of the bound belly. And unlike laxatives, the White Castles leave one with no side effects except, of course, the slatherings of cholesterol involved!

My morning was spent most delightfully on working with the 101 book cover again with Ian. I am so impressed that in designing the cover, he has gone into my intentions for the whole series of three books I plan to write – 102: The Outer Work and 103: The Inner Work. By the end of the day we were close to cinching a plan for the cover series. I still need to write just a sentence or two of text to explain why the chakras on the book cover are glowing unevenly. I will tackle that Monday morning, when I can approach the task with a fresh and clear mind.

It’s a nifty idea. On the 101 cover, all the chakras will glow equally except that the green ray will glow more brightly. That is the unifying element to the three covers. The green ray is always the brightest, as it is the true heart of our energy body, whether you’re looking at the lower chakras, the upper chakras or the whole energy body. On the 102 cover, which is about working with the lower chakras, they will glow more brightly than the blue-indigo-violet chakras. On the 103 cover, the opposite will be true, as the inner work is all about the upper array of chakras. As Gary would say, “How cool is that?”

I also was tickled several shades of pink to receive from Mary, my beloved sister-in-law, the news that my suggested plans for our Christmas together - over New Year's, probably - were accepted as read by Bro Tommy. I can now contemplate the Rueckert Christmas get-together here without clenching. This is good!

It is a sad but true thing that families can give us the toughest catalyst of all, and usually completely without trying to do so. Such was certainly the case during our last and rather difficult get-together two Christmases ago. I think the changes we have made will make it a real pleasure this time!

I am blessed by having an in-house Christmas celebration that will be absolutely beautiful and stress-free. Melissa will be here, and she and I will craft some good things to eat. Gary and Mick will make the Christmas meal. We’ll have the Christmas Eve service together, then a nice long sleep and a leisurely and luxurious day on the 25th. I hope that Eric and his Mom, Phellis, can be with us then also. We may even have the pleasure of Romi’s company. This little band of lovely souls seems close to catalyst-free, except for the positive catalyst of being mutually supported and encouraged. How blessed I am to dwell in the midst of such love!

I suspect that it is because we all – Mel, Gary, Romi, Mick and I – hear the beat of one drummer, that Love that is far greater than we ourselves. When all are focused on something beyond themselves and united in that service, whatever comes up is so much more easily handled.

After lunch, Mick settled in for some college football. I watched with him for a while, enjoying the sight of a U of L man gracefully hurling himself high in the air over at least a half a dozen men to land in the end zone. Touchdown! That was sweet! After a while I went back to the office and worked on Lana’s chapters 4 and 5, paying forward all the devoted and helpful work Steve M did, reading through my work on 101, chapter by chapter, as I was writing it.

Last week we sent out our snail-mail letters asking for donations for 2009 and today I signed 18 thank-you-plus-tax-receipt letters as Gary prepared them for me! Halleluiah!

Gary and I also chewed through Terry H’s latest round of half a dozen questions as he finishes translating TLOO, Book Five, into Chinese.

Mick and I cuddled for a while after our whirlpool, and then went downstairs to catch some supper and enjoy the Oklahoma – Texas Tech game. To be more accurate, Mick enjoyed the game while I read and enjoyed the instant replays of outstanding plays! It works for us!

Then suddenly it was time for the L/L Research Public Meeting. There were only three present tonight, Gary, Mick and me. But what a great group! Gary had questions about the difference between channeling light energy and becoming light energy and also about the nature of beauty – excellent questions. I look forward to editing the transcript and finding out what the Q’uo group said.

2008-11-21

2008-11-22T08:11:00.002-05:00

As the temperatures weakly struggled to surpass 20 degrees F, Mick and Gary suited up in every warm dud they owned and set out after Morning Offering to crunch leaves and trim up lawns for JLS. They arrived back home at 1:00, triumphant and hungry! We had lunch together and then Mick spent the afternoon clearing leaves from our very own yard while Gary cooked our feast for next week. We’ll need to cook again mid-week for Thanksgiving, so Gary fixed half-recipes of everything.

Meanwhile I expected to spend the day editing Lana’s chapters and then getting started on a backlog of transcripts from our own channeling sessions which need editing. However some days do not go as planned!

I received a good and thoughtful letter back from my sister-in-law, Mary concerning Christmas plans. My previous letter to her was a request for deeper communication, as it had been my perception that she had not enjoyed her last visit here, and if she were to come, I dearly wanted her to have a better time. On my part, I had also had difficulties during our last visit.

She responded very substantively and lovingly and asked for my best shot at a good schedule for the upcoming visit. I spent a good two hours on coming up with one which took all our issues into consideration. Now she can tweak it and perhaps between us, we can fashion a far better-fitting Rueckert Christmas this year.

Two parts of our clan will not be here this Christmas – Carlos, our cousin on Dad’s side, the son of his brother, David, and a wonderful guy, and Jim, our brother, will not be coming with their wives and children. So the crowd will be Jim and me, Mary and Tommy, and their children, Ted, Rosie and E. J. (short for Emily Jean). We have yet to set the date, but it will likely be around New Years Day.

Then Ian began working on the back cover of 101, sending requests for details as to the contents of the back cover. Over the course of the day we agreed to have an author photo page inside the book and use the back cover for blurbs only. Then I set about editing the blurbs down, as we have too much copy for the space.

We also worked on how the title should read, and played with different versions of the three parts of it, “Living the Law of One”, “101”, and “The Choice”. By bath time I’d gone through two generations of edits on text, and I suspect there is more to come!

Then I took up the question of what new names I wished to add to our Christmas Card List. I went through the St. Luke’s address book and my e-mail folders and added about two dozen new names and sent them to Gary to add to our Christmas Card database. That felt good!

While I had the St. Luke’s directory handy, I got Mason R’s e-mail address – she and her husband had hosted the choir after church a couple of Sundays ago for a rehearsal. She fixed a pasta dish with peanut butter in it, and Gary loves peanut butter. So I asked her for the recipe. In return I traded her the recipes for the Benedictine and Worcestershire Cheddar sandwich spreads I took to the rehearsal – the choir members all brought pot-luck dishes to go with Mason’s pasta.

Back to working on Christmas! I sent an e-mail to Mick with Mel’s ladder information and asked him to select the ladder he likes the best, which he did. I was able to send that info on to Mel, who will order it on my behalf. It’s Mick’s big Christmas present.

I will get to the editing tomorrow! It was far more important to my peace of mind to spend my time today working to make the Christmas season a lovely, quiet and peaceful one for our little family. And I think Mary and I came a long way towards that today.

After Mick and I bathed, we had a lovely date and danced in the light together with wonderfully exciting energy shared between us. We came down to find Gary already gone to Valerie’s, and so enjoyed a late supper alone. Mick offered the closing prayer at the Gaia Meditation tonight.

2008-11-20

2008-11-21T06:53:00.003-05:00

I got a slow start to my day because of blissfully oversleeping this morning, only awakening in time to greet Mick and have Morning Offering. Then I fell asleep in my office recliner! So I only got the basics done: the Camelot Journal entry, my precious chapel time and the Holly Journal entry.

I had time before lunch to write a thoughtful letter to my sister-in-law about the upcoming Christmas festivities, which will be held here around New Year’s Day.

After lunch I enjoyed the luxury of a massage and having my toes and fingers groomed at Absolutely Salon. I drove home in the first snow flurries of this season, noticing how many trees are completely bare now. And the honeysuckle berries are almost gone. We shall have to remember to keep our bird feeder filled now. ‘Tis the season for our winged friends to need some help with chow.

We’re having generous response to our fund drive, Gary reports, but are nowhere near our goal yet. I suggested putting a notice up on our web site after Thanksgiving with an indicator of how far we’ve come towards our target and extending the drive.

Another sign of the time of year: Gary accumulated all snail mail addresses of the new attendees to L/L Research events and all Jim’s new customers at Jim’s Lawn Service for our Christmas Card List and had me go over the list with him before bath time. I still need to send him my new additions, mostly from St. Luke’s, where I have made new friends in Christ.

At bath time, Mick held a ceremony for saying good-bye to two of his most-patched work pants. They have torn through at the knees yet again, and he now is willing not to patch them again. Finally, finally, he is letting them go! He has one week to go in the mowing season - Week 39 - and three pairs of very patched work pants left to see him through, and then he promises to start on a new batch of four work jeans which he has had hanging in his closet since last summer.

I should be having fun, enjoying the quirky patched pants, but I have an obscure concern that people will see the patches and think that I don't take care of my husband! Kinda silly, eh?

Gary, Mick and I enjoyed a quiet dinner and the Gaia Meditation, at which Gary offered the closing prayer.

2008-11-18

2008-11-19T06:31:00.002-05:00

As the thermometer continued to give us chilly news, after Morning Offering Mick donned his many layers of warm clothing and set out to crunch a zillion leaves! During Morning Offering we looked out the living room windows which let on to the back yard and beheld the awesome sight of our row of gingko trees at the back property line, which were all dropping ALL of their leaves at once. It was a golden, heavy rain! And the Thanksgiving cactus is in bloom just inside that window, which gave the spectacle a beautiful frame.

Mick crunched and bagged leaves all day, and injured himself slightly when he took a heavy fall on gravel, coming home with torn-up knees. He said if it was not for the long johns and the sturdy patches on his knees, the damage would have been a good deal worse.

His patches! They’re a sight! Mick has been patching his work jeans, even though there are four new pairs of work jeans in his closet. He is a creature of ritual, and until the 39-week mowing season is over – which is at the end of next week – he wants to wear this season’s pants. He’s a sight! I have started calling him “Patches”. One of his four pairs has nine patches, while the others have at least half a dozen apiece. He is wabi-sabi picturesque!

I spent the day writing my UPI column on the war in heaven spoken of in the Book of Revelations in the Bible and in the Ra Material as well. This is the third part of my series on the interactions of the Confederation of Angels and Planets with the Earth world. Next week: angels, according to the Confederation, to finish up the series. It has been a fun series to do. I’ve been answering JoyousChee’s questions, of which this is the second. I look forward to seeing what question number three is!

I worked for a while on my Gift List for Christmas late in the afternoon, and set up a time log for working on Buke Tolga’s questions. I hope to take Buke's queries up tomorrow, after I read through two of Lana’s chapters for her.

Mel struggled mightily all day with the book-keeping computer, which Romi had just tweaked by installing QuickBooks 2008 and adding memory. The Ro Man had forgotten to dot an I or cross a T somewhere, because the internet access was trammeled. Ro came over after work, had a bite of supper with us and then worked with Mel on the computer troubles, on some questions she had about the solar batteries – Romi is an engineer – and then on the page of drawings for Dana’s book which she is re-creating so they are legible.

Mel distinguished herself in thoughtfulness by adding a backstop to the keyboard tray of my office desk today. There was no backstop there previously and the keyboard tended to fall out the back and hit the floor with a big bang when the office chair caught the cord just right. This situation has stood since February of 2006, when I set up this office. Less than a week after she discovered it, it is fixed! I am dazzled!

We had a most enjoyable evening with Gary, fresh from conquering the L/L Research Inbox, Mel, Romi, Mick and I to share conversation. Romi offered the closing prayer at the Gaia Meditation.

2008-11-17

2008-11-18T06:59:00.003-05:00

The temperature kept dropping all day as a dry cold front gusted through Kentucky today. Mick had his long johns to keep him warm as he chewed up the leaves with his mower’s gator blades and mulch plates. He worked this afternoon for a new customer who has some odd jobs for him, always a welcome thing in Mick’s off-season. The grass may not be growing, but our bills still need to be paid, so we are glad for the odd jobs, outside, inside and just plain screwy! And Mick does enounter ODD odd jobs sometimes! His favorite so far is teaching a customer how to pump her own gas.

I had a disturbed night and was thrilled that I only had one nap today! It felt good to have most of the day to work! I went through the archives to secure quotes for this week’s UPI article, part three of the series on the Confederation of Angels and Planets in the Service of the Infinite Creator and their relationship to Earth. This one will be on the war in “heaven”, so called in the Bible. By bath time I had my research done and felt that I was all ready to write tomorrow.

It is getting light later, again – I recall this happening every winter. We switch to standard time and gain an hour of daylight in the mornings, only to discover that Mr. Sun is fleeing faster than ever. When I finish my journals in the early morning, I put my mouse on its stand, and as I do, the red lights at the bottom of the mouse track across the darkened windows like a car passing. That little moment of lights passing epitomizes winter for me! Tender is the night - and long!

After our bath and whirlpool, Mick and I enjoyed a beautiful and enlivening energy exchange and a good snuggle before coming down for supper and the Gaia Meditation, at which Mick offered the closing prayer.

2008-11-16

2008-11-17T07:04:00.002-05:00

Happy Sabbath! Mick and I spent our mornings as we so often do on Sundays, with me singing a service at St. Luke’s and Mick cleaning house. As it happened, there was only one tenor in the choir this morning, so I sang tenor today! Admittedly I do not sound my best on those low notes, but it made the choir’s sound balance.

We shared lunch with Tiffani and Gary, who then took off for Bernheim Forest in the chill and gray afternoon for a hike while Mick and I watched The Stone Angel. This film has a classic flashback premise, as Ellen Burstyn, playing an old woman near death from cancer, deals with the issues of old age while remembering younger days, all the way from childhood through marriage, her children and even their adulthood. The movie might have worked better if the heroine had experienced a life with more notes of whimsy and humor. As it was, we dragged from one sad tale to the next.

Burstyn was excellent in the role, summoning a sharpness of tone as she delivered some very good sarcastic one-liners that balanced well the usual soft-spoken humility of other aspects of her character’s voice. The music was edgy and folksy, a Celtic-feeling source of comment and the expresser of unsaid things throughout the piece.

The film took us until late because we inserted a nap in the middle of the running, so we took a bath and had a break before we saw the second film, Deception. This movie gave us a delicious, dark journey. Hugh Jackson made an excellent villain and Ewan McGregor was equally good as his puzzled, then deeply threatened pawn.

The sensibility of the film was pure “art film”. Every shot was carefully assembled, with the color scheme of blues, browns and blacks with many small spots of light creating a sober palette which painted the intricacies of the urban world of high finance and high rises. When you saw red, orange or yellow touches in the shot, look out! Here came trouble! The pivotal scene held all the colors of the rainbow! It was a marvelously well integrated artistic statement.

I lapped this film up with a big spoon. I love a mystery, and this eerie string of events which kept tightening like a noose around our poor pawn's neck was as unpredictable as it was inevitable. I understand that this film got mostly bad reviews. I can only assume that many reviewers these days do not speak “art film” or grasp the nuances of them. That’s too bad for us all!

We said good night to Tiffani and Gary after the Gaia Meditation, knowing that she would leave tomorrow morning before we will rise. It was lots of fun being with Tiff! Mick offered the closing prayer tonight.

2008-11-15

2008-11-16T06:41:00.003-05:00

It was a most enjoyable Saturday, a real day off. Mick and I had just finished Morning Offering when Gary and Tiffani came in. They had spent the night at Valerie’s. Tiffani took a shower and I worked on my journals, and then she took me to lunch at Selena’s Restaurant, a new eatery right here in Anchorage. I had wondered how it was, and it was a real treat to find out. Yum! Everything was delicious! We chatted and lingered over coffee before heading to the psychic, Leigh Ann L’s, so that I could drop Tiff off for her appointment.

I drove home just ahead of Fox and Smut, a wonderful couple who have built their own farm, their house, pond, gardens and outbuildings, all from scratch. Fox is a weaver and does beautiful work, while Smut still counsels three days a week, continuously adding to the farm’s riches on his “off” days. Melissa shortly joined us. We had lunch together and enjoyed a spirited conversation until sundown. About halfway through the afternoon, Mel left to attend a farm expo at the State Fair and Exposition Center. She wanted to see the llamas and alpacas. She arrived back at the house after they left, disappointed to have missed them.

Romi had spent some time solving my computer’s anti-virus glitch in the morning while I was gone, and he returned in time to take some supper with us and then enjoy a round-robin talk around the circle and then a silent meditation. Afterwards, we shared tea and Mel, Ro and I discussed the progress of the Alphabet Mosaics project. It is moving slowly, but we are pressing on. Mel and Romi made a date to work together next Tuesday evening on some aspects of the page which Mel is reworking for one of the AM’s appendices.

2008-11-14

2008-11-15T07:38:00.002-05:00

Mick and Gary left after Morning Offering to tackle their Friday mowing, returning at the noon hour. They were a couple of hours earlier than usual in finishing because one customer with a good deal of acreage was having her lawn treated. It takes 24 hours for that chemical soup to sink into the ground. So they could not mow today.

Gary was glad of the extra free time because Tiffani, an L/L Board member and his good friend, was coming in later today and he had wanted to finish the cooking early anyway. He did so, and was off to pick her up in late afternoon.

Mick was also prompt to take advantage of the extra time and worked in our yard, blowing all the leaves out of the hedges and plantings and mowing them, then trimming up everything. Since the leaves are literally raining down, and since harsh weather is due in here overnight, it will be hard for him to see where he’s been tomorrow, but we won’t be knee-deep in leaves, just in cold rain.

I wrote in my journals and cleaned up a bunch of personal e-mail, writing my brothers, sending forwards of various things to those with interests in those areas and in general keeping up with the onslaught. I have some substantial letters to reply to, but I was eager to get to Buke T’s further questions first. She is paying me by the hour as though I were counseling her as I work on her questions by e-mail. I put in a half-hour of work before lunch. I also created my 2008 Christmas Gift List.

Mel spent the morning doing research at the computer on various Avalon-related subjects like truck parts for the Avalon Farm truck, solar batteries and ladders.

After lunch Mel and I came up to the office and chose a Roasted Garlic Hummus recipe to make for tomorrow’s guests – Tiffani will be here and Fox and Smut as well, in addition to Melissa, so we wanted to have something for noshes. Mel brought garlic harvested from the garden at Avalon recently, so we'll have that Avalon touch in the hummus!

Then we took my Gift List down to the basement, where I have been stashing presents for the last 10 months – I begin buying Christmas presents in January, when the Church Publishing Company has its excellent sale. I watch for deep sales all year.

We found that I had already gotten Mom McCarty a good birthday present – we are headed to Nebraska for her 91st birthday after thanksgiving – and had over half of the Christmas presents already in hand. I will gift as many people as possible with my new book, 101! And the rest, hopefully, will be folks to whom it is appropriate to give L/L Research T-shirts and mugs.

All of this took the afternoon, but it was well worth the time to have a handle on the gifts situation. Mel volunteered to wrap presents for me after Thanksgiving’s cooking is done. Bless her heart! She is incredibly generous with her time when it comes to helping me out.

After Mick’s and my bath, we had a lovely date and cuddled in the afterglow until about 8:00 p.m. We joined Melissa for supper and conversation. Mick offered the closing prayer at the Gaia Meditation tonight.

2008-11-13

2008-11-14T06:51:00.003-05:00

It warmed up today, which made the work more pleasant for Mick. He expected to have rain early in the day, but it did not transpire, so after Morning Offering he took on the big job at the B’s. On good days this large acreage takes three hours to get looking pretty. Today it took Mick five solid hours! Bless those leaves!

He finished out his day with smaller jobs and came home very happy, having gotten a leg up on tomorrow. We are also expecting rain tomorrow. This has been a rainy week altogether, and Mick is incredibly good at finding a way to stay on schedule anyway!

My morning was one of excitement and enjoyment – excitement because 101’s back-cover material is now collected and in Ian’s hands, and enjoyment because of the way spirit works.

Phyllis Schlemmer, whose book, The Only Planet of Choice, has been a best-seller for years, sent in her blurb early this morning. This gave me three blurbs, with Steve Tyman's and Rob Schwartz's. I still had heard nothing from Jean-Claude, after giving him lots of notice, so I released him from being responsible for sending in a blurb. I figured that three blurbs, plus Jim’s summary of contents, plus my author photo, would make a good back cover.

I sent all of the blurbs, the summary and the bar code from blitzprint.com, the printer, in to Ian, who is collaborating with Michele Matossian, who is doing the cover art, to finalize the cover. I told Ian that I would send in Jean-Claude’s blurb if it came in today. Otherwise, he could assume that “what he had was what we got”.

I hit the “send” button, and Jean-Claude’s blurb came in! Of course! He could not send it in until I released my expectations. So I happily sent in Jean-Claude’s beautiful recommendation too. All the blurbs are quite complimentary and I think I am most fortunate and blessed to have these very successful authors to recommend 101. I wrote Jean-Claude and Phyllis to thank them, and I shared with Jean-Claude my little story of how spirit works. I know he enjoyed that!

Ian replied that he was now all set to do the final production on the cover. He and Michele are creating two “looks” for the cover, one with the design offset to the left and the text offset to the right, and one with the design centered and the title above the design and the author, publication text and logo beneath it. He expects to show me the choices sometime this weekend! We are getting so close to printing now! Whee! I’m giddy with joy!

In the afternoon I finally got back to writing the UPI article for this week, part two of my “Confederation of Angels and Planets” series, and completed it by bath time. That felt good too! I only had one inadvertent nap today, after sleeping last night until a bit past 8:00 a.m. That is the latest I have slept in a decade! It felt grand!

We watched Amy Goodman doing the Fund Drive for Link TV – she is a wonderful saleswoman – and then an episode of House before coming downstairs for Jon Stewart, Stephen Colbert and dinner. I offered the closing prayer at the Gaia Meditation tonight.

Gary was at the admin helm all day and reported at dinnertime that he had almost caught up on the burgeoning L/L Research Inbox e-mail! I do not know how he does it! He works very quickly indeed. I think back to the days when I was responsible for that Inbox and thank the good Lord that donations have made it possible for Gary to man that! He is the right man for the job!

Gary and I conferred briefly and he will take the many questions which Terry H has sent in as he translates TLOO Book 5 into Chinese, and compile them into a single document. Then Gary will talk with me and take notes, and write to Terry. Bless him for that! It will save me a lot of time.

Tiffani, a member of our Board and an old friend of L/L’s and especially of Gary’s, will come in for an over-the-weekend visit tomorrow. And Melissa is due to come down from Avalon for an overnight visit tomorrow too. We’ll have a wonderful group of loving people here at Camelot over this weekend! What a treat!

2008-11-12

2008-11-13T14:08:00.002-05:00

I awoke in the pre-dawn feeling as though I had a sharp stick in my right eye. For a while after I got up to tend to it, I could not see. After some washing and repeated clearings by hand of the gummy material the eye had put out to protect itself, I could see again, but the eye was almost closed and extremely sore. This has occurred repeatedly, to one eye and then the other, with this mystery illness that has offered me such unusual gifts lately, along with inadvertent and constant napping, shortness of breath and other symptoms that preclude physical activity.

As soon as I came up from Morning Offering to my office and sat down in my recliner, I fell fast asleep. I kept rousing only to fall asleep again. I persevered through writing the Camelot Journal for yesterday and into my chapel time, and told Holly, “I am dragging this morning and have fallen asleep three times. Are you sure the angels are behind this? I feel as though I am playing hooky!”

She said, “Yes, my child, the angels are attempting to give you the rest your body needs. Please do not begrudge the need for extra sleep. The doctors cannot help you, for they cannot untangle the causes of your current challenges. Let the angels help you.”

I said, “Holly, my problem with this is that I have precious work which I dearly want to do. I want to write an article today and I am all ready to start. But I keep falling asleep and when I awaken I cannot focus.”

And Holly replied, “Carla, the average soul would already have put himself to bed, feeling the discomfort you feel and identifying it as an illness. It is courageous of you to wish to ignore your discomfort, and to refuse to identify yourself as ill. And in a way you are right. There is a substantial psychic greeting involved in intensifying your uncomfortable and limiting symptoms.

"Nevertheless, you need to cooperate with your struggling body in order to allow your blood pressure to normalize. Let yourself sleep and do not concern yourself with the concept of deadlines. Whenever you are able to finish your article, it will be gladly received. Relax and collaborate with spirit. Do not judge yourself as lazy when your every fiber wishes to work!”

As you can imagine, I was not thrilled with this reading! I said, “Holly, this is hard advice for me to take. I want so badly to work! I love my work! I am here on Earth to serve by doing this work, work that no one else can do. Can I not rise above this?”

And she replied, “Yes, you can, but first let your body nap until it wakes up naturally. Then move into your creative work in love and rejoicing.”

Unfortunately for my plans to write the article today, when I at last awoke, the sun was going down and bath time was near. I went back to the office and found, to my great happiness, that I had received Steve Tyman’s blurb for 101. I also heard from Phyllis Schlemmer that her blurb would be here tomorrow! Mick had sent me his summary of the book for the back cover and Gary had sent me the bar code, so I have only to hear from Jean-Claude Koven, who had promised to write a blurb for 101 back in September but has since gone silent, and I will have all the back-cover material ready to send to Ian for the final production of the book. This is marvelous news!

Melissa wrote from Avalon to report that she was a close witness to a bad wreck on Highway 421. It shook her up badly, so I wrote her a note of comfort. I tried to call her as well, but she was out working, as she almost always is when the weather is fair. And she has the power off in order to get the solar batteries worked on, so I could not leave a message, as her telephone answering device requires juice.

Mel is a sensitive plant, psychically speaking, and I regret that she had to go through this. She also said she would be coming down to Louisville soon, which I am glad to hear!

I wrote thank-you notes to Rob Schwartz and Steve Tyman for the blurbs they sent in, and thanked Phyllis for her kind words in the e-mail in which she said she’d have the blurb to me by tomorrow. Then I sent Jean-Claude a “Last Call” e-mail. If his blurb is not here when Phyllis’s comes in, I will go ahead and finalize the back cover copy without his blurb.

I got some sad news today! Mick and I love to go to the International UFO Congress when I get invited to speak there, as it is a lovely spot, our room is paid for, there’s lots happening and it functions as a real vacation for us. However I did not make the cut this year. Nicole B-I wrote to say that they loved my work and thought I gave great presentations, but there were 210 people ready to speak and they had only 30 spots. And I spoke there last year. So they decided to give a new person a chance instead. Sigh! I wrote her back to say that if they had a late cancellation, I would be glad to fill in!

Mick had been working like a beaver all day, trying to get ahead of the rain that is predicted for tomorrow afternoon and the next three days. He came home exultant. He has only one job to do tomorrow – his largest acreage; it takes him at least three hours and sometimes as much as five if there are problems. and the leaves constitute a problem! But he has cleared the day, and he should be able to accomplish that before the rain sets in tomorrow. So he was a cat with cream on his whiskers!

After our bath and a snuggle, I went to choir practice at St. Luke’s. We are practicing Advent and Christmas music now, one beautiful piece after another. Mick picked me up afterwards and we came home to a late supper and the Gaia Meditation with Gary. Mick offered the closing prayer tonight.

2008-11-11

2008-11-12T07:19:00.002-05:00

While the skies gently wept and the thermometer barely exceeded forty degrees, Dianne and I went to Images Salon for facials and haircuts. It is lovely to have a non-itchy face for a while, and sport a cropped pixie instead of the shaggy one with which I came in! We topped off the occasion by dining at The Cheesecake Factory, where Dianne adores the turkey burgers.

She was concerned that she should give me money for gas, as I always drive when we go out, and so I said, “Treat me for lunch today and we’re good through 2009!” She did so, and I ordered Steak Diane in her honor. We laughed and talked and I came home wrapped in the glow of togetherness and belonging that a girlfriend gives you, feeling loved and cherished. We’ve been friends since 1975! Dianne is a deep, very penetrating thinker and I value her greatly.

On December 23rd, at our next visit to Images,I will become purple-haired – a nice deep purple that only shimmers a bit off black except where I have gray hairs. The gray will function as my natural highlights, since the purple color will come out vividly where there is gray. It has worked well for my last two Christmas forays into hair color – green and then ruby red – and I so look forward to being a Purple Lady! I would have colored my hair this time around, except I wanted to spare Jim’s Mom. She has a hard time with my antic taste in do’s! She’ll have to put up with me in early spring, but for the upcoming visit to Nebraska after Thanksgiving, I’ll still be brown-haired and normal looking for her 91st birthday.

I wrote Mel a thank-you note for all the hard work she has done lately, for the Channeling Intensive cooking and on behalf of my seasonal clothes-changing. In my present state of breathlessness and lack of mobility, such perfectly ordinary tasks are a bit beyond my reach, and Mel has become my arms and legs and loving hands in so many ways! Thank you, Melissa of Avalon!

I also filled her in on our Thanksgiving plans and asked for her help in cooking the appetizer, the dessert and the morning-after breakfast. Fortunately I have just finished reworking the Breakfast Foods folder in my recipes database – as of today, Ta Da! - so we have any number of fun casseroles from which to choose for making Friday morning’s breakfast a good one for our guests, Eric and Phellis. I have also reworked the Appetizers folder, and we’ve got lots of good choices there. I’ll start on the Desserts folder tomorrow and maybe by the time Melissa and I reach that festive day, we’ll have some good choices there too.

Gary always sees to the vegetables and starches for such occasions, and Mick always cooks the turkey. However Gary is visiting his Dad for the big day, so he’ll help cook our feast, but he won’t get to enjoy eating it until it’s leftovers.

After I rolled back in from that delicious lunch, shook the rain out of my jacket and headed upstairs to my office, I found myself in a state of almost instant sleep, and though I roused several times and wrote some e-mails, I never could focus well enough to write my UPI article. I’ll tackle that again tomorrow morning, the Lord willing!

I am thrilled to say that Robert Schwartz and Stephen Tyman, whose books in the field are well respected, have both written me blurbs for the back cover of 101 as of today! Mick sent in a summary of the text and Gary sent in the bar code. So I am all set for the back cover material except for Phyllis Schlemmer’s blurb and Jean-Claude Koven’s. They also are noted authors in my fringe area of research, especially Phyllis, whom I first met in 1974 at Andrija Puharich’s house in Ossining. She is a seasoned veteran, serving as a channel for ET sources and traveling the world meditating for peace. Phyllis wrote to say she’d send me the blurb by tomorrow. Thank you, Phyllis!

Jean-Claude has gone silent. He is probably traveling and speaking as he so often does, but if I do not hear from him by tomorrow, I’ll move on without his blurb. I think I’ll have enough copy for the back cover without it.

I felt increasingly unwell as the evening wore on, my right eye starting to swell up and my tummy troubling me, so Mick and I kept the evening very quiet and focused on how wonderful it was to be together! We had a late supper, joined by Gary, and it was Gary who offered the last prayer at tonight’s Gaia Meditation.

2008-11-10

2008-11-11T06:58:00.002-05:00

The temperature keeps plummeting! We were close to a frost last night, and this morning Mick set out in his winter “long johns” to do his mowing. He is crunching leaves by the gazillion!

I worked on my UPI article for this week, which is Part Two of a four-part series on the Confederation and their interactions with us humans. After getting two pages into the writing I found that I wanted to do a bit more research before finishing the writing, as there were quotations I had not yet captured that I recalled and wanted to include. So I spent the rest of the day doing the searches necessary to find all the quotes from TLOO. I’ll have a running start on finishing the article tomorrow afternoon.

I wrote to Eric and Phellis S, son and mother, inviting them to Thanksgiving dinner. Eric is Mick’s age and they were neighbors and close friends when he lived on his homestead in Marion County, Kentucky. Several years ago now, Eric discovered that his sisters had placed his Mom in a nursing home, which she absolutely hated, being of sound mind and active. He went back to New England and checked her out, brought her to Kentucky and together they found a modest home. They have lived there ever since. Eric’s kind and loving heart really shines as he shares his life as companion and sometimes caregiver to his Mom. We love them both dearly and hope they can join us! Melissa also will treat us to her company. Gary and Romi are both visiting their people elsewhere for Thanksgiving.

I also wrote the three people from whom I requested blurbs for the back cover of 101 last month, goosing them with a plea for ASAP blurbs. We are ALL ready to go now except for those blurbs. I also wrote Mick to ask him for a back-cover summary of the book, and Gary to ask him to secure the bar code from blitzprint. That’s all we’re waiting on before printing 101! I am excited!

After a good whirlpool and bath, Mick and I had a date, sharing an amazing amount of energy and feeling as though we had moved through the gateway to intelligent infinity and into the light! When I look in the mirror and my 65-year-old self, I find it difficult to believe that rumpled and well-used bodies such as mine could encompass such beauty. Yet it is true. Thank heavens!

We eventually descended to enjoy supper and Gary joined us for the Gaia Meditation. I offered the closing prayer tonight.

2008-11-09

2008-11-10T07:02:00.002-05:00

Sunday was a bit different this week, since I did not have to go to choir practice before church, but instead went to a special practice afterwards. It was colder today, and leaves were falling like rain. Father Joe gave a hilarious sermon today on the subject of the wise and foolish maidens. In Jesus’ parable, the wise virgins have oil for their lamps, while the foolish ones do not. When the bridegroom is late, they all fall asleep. When he comes, in the middle of the night, only the wise maidens can light their lamps and go to the wedding feast.

Father Joe had all the kids in the congregation come to the chancel steps. There he showed them an oil lamp. None of the children had seen one before. He tried to light it, but he had no oil in it. “Who has some oil?” From the rear of the church came, “I have some in my purse.” Little James was sent for the oil but came back empty-handed. “She wants money for the oil.” A volunteer was found who paid two dollars for the oil. James gave the lady her money and brought the oil to the chancel, where Father Joe eventually lit the lamp.

I thought it was a uniquely clever and painless way to use the Gospel lesson of the day for the fund-raising sermon. It’s pledge time at St. Luke’s. I had already sent in my pledge card, which made the sermon much more enjoyable!

Mick came to drive me to the R’s, who were hosting the practice. The practice itself was preceded by a pot-luck luncheon, and for my offering, Mick brought along the last of Mel’s Benedictine Sandwiches from our Channeling Intensive 3 Gathering, plus the sandwiches which Gary had made from the last of Mel’s Worcestershire Cheese Ball, all nicely cut into quarters. It was a great way to use up our delicious leftovers! We spent about two hours eating and then practicing Christmas music.

Then Mick and I sat down for our one film of the day, Death-Defying Acts. It was an interesting piece starring Guy Pearce as an entrancing Harry Houdini and Catherine Zeta-Jones as an equaly appealing stage psychic who hopes to win a prize for telling Harry what his mother’s last words were. Saiorse Ronan, playing Zeta-Jones’ daughter beautifully, surprises everyone, herself most of all, by falling into a fugue state near the film's end and coming up with the answer. Timothy Spall was particularly effective, poignantly protective and ever upset, as Houdini’s harassed manager.

Set in 1926, when Houdini was touring the British Isles, the film was chock full of excellent production values. The costumes were absolutely stunning. Director Gillian Armstrong created a nuanced, subtly chiaroscuro atmosphere where lights glowed and shadows abounded, no matter what the setting. I greatly enjoyed this movie. She even brought the film in at 97 minutes – short and sweet by today’s standards. It was a fine story, very well told.

We took a break, and I went straight to bed for a delicious nap. Mick roused me for supper and then the Gaia Meditation, at which he offered the closing prayer.

Gary breeezed in for a short visit after his sweat lodge, which he thought was just great. He suggested we include one at our next Homecoming. It's a good idea!

2008-11-08

2008-11-09T07:44:00.002-05:00

What a difference a day and a storm make! Driving out with Mick this morning to restock my herbal remedies at Rainbow Blossom, I saw more trees empty of leaves by far than there had been a couple of days ago. Autumn’s glory is fading fast here in Kentucky. Every outdoor surface is awash in leaves. Mick drove by yards he had gotten completely clean of leaves only yesterday, shaking his head. “You can’t tell I’ve even been there!” he said. It will only be a couple of weeks now until the leaves are all down and Jim’s Lawn Service can put the mowers to sleep for their winter's hibernation.

I spent my working time on the Feet to the Fire interview with James Jancik, finally finishing the 33-page transcript at bath time. I continued to deal with inadvertent naps all day but managed to finish the job at last, which felt very good!

Mick took an afternoon of rest, having mowed our yard yesterday. In the morning, he cleaned the kitchen and baked a turkey, then went with me to do errands. But his afternoon was full of football. He so deserves this! No one works harder than Mick does all week. It was great to see him happily ensconced in his papa-chair flipping around from game to game, awash in his favorite sport. Mick was both captain and quarterback on his high school football team. He is too short and the town was too small for him to dwell on his clichéd past glories as do some older jocks, but he loves the game. He was cheering for his teams and I was cheering for him!

After a good bath, we had supper and welcomed Romi and Gary for our weekly L/L Research public meditation. We talked around the circle and then had a channeling meditation dealing with Gary’s question about what an entity, as the word is used by Ra, is, and how much of an entity is the conscious, waking mind. It was an intriguing question which I do not think has been asked before. I look forward to editing the transcript.

After the meditation, we passed the peace to each other and I sang “Shalom” for our Gaia Meditation. Then Romi and I shared glasses of wine and conversation while Gary took off for Valerie’s and Mick immersed himself in more football. We all said goodnight a bit after 11:00 p.m.

2008-11-07

2008-11-08T07:33:00.002-05:00

The anniversary of Don’s death dawned rainy and cool, winds tugging the leaves into a rain of their own. Mick and I paused several times today to remember our beloved companion, his great soul and his loving and wise teachings. Even after 24 years, his presence in our lives is such that we think of him at least once every day. Don, we love you so much!

And we’re still working on the projects we shared with you, BC! I know you enjoy the distance we have come. You asked us for two things: to make the Confederation philosophy available world-wide and to live in spiritual community according to the Law of One. Our web sites fulfill the first request, and we’re living the Law of One with Gary, Melissa and Romi - and with all of our extended family of volunteers, readers and supporters - every day, fulfilling the second request as we go!

I almost lost the day completely to sleeping, still almost overwhelmed by exhaustion. After Morning Offering I came up to my office and fell asleep in my chair immediately. I roused and worked for a few minutes only to nod off again. This happened four times. Finally I said, “Look, angels, I’d really like to get just a modest amount of work done today. May I please stay awake?” After that, I was able to finish my chapel time and write my journals.

In the afternoon, I edited in the Feet to the Fire interview, coming to page 20 of 32 by bath time. It is slow going because Mr. Jancik does not speak in recognizable sentences and much editing time goes into my creating good sentences for him which are easy to read while retaining his intended meaning.

I also ordered some Double-Crostics and Quote-Acrostics puzzle books, as I have come to the end of my current supply. I am very fond of these little puzzles, because when you solve the puzzle, it yields a quote, sort of like finding a prize in the bottom of the cereal box.

Mick and Gary powered through a very full day of crunching leaves for Jim’s Lawn Service. In some of the JLS customer’s yards, almost all the leaves have now fallen, so they had lots to do for all of their seven Friday customers. They completed their tasks in mid-afternoon. Mick spent the rest of the daylight doing weekly equipment maintenance while Gary outdid himself in the kitchen, creating Boursin Mashed Potatoes and Asparagus Pie. Mick will bake a turkey tomorrow morning while he cleans the kitchen and voila! We shall have next week’s feast completed.

After Mick and I bathed, we shared a lovely date, the energy gentle and sweet this time. After we dozed and cuddled in the afterglow, we came down to supper and the Gaia Meditation. I offered the closing prayer tonight.

2008-11-06

2008-11-07T10:59:00.001-05:00

Sometimes the day goes better if you acknowledge at its beginning that your goals will be modest. Such was the case for me today. I have been very slow to recover from the weekend gathering last weekend, and while it is tempting to become aggravated, such emotion serves no positive purpose. My goal for today was to remain in my integrity as a child of God and a servant of Jesus the Christ and rejoice in the day.

I enjoyed spontaneous naps in both morning and afternoon. Other than reading a ton of forwards and cleaning up my Inbox of extraneous mail – and sending forwards on to friends when their interests were targeted by them – I only did my journal writing and caught up on some needed ordering of underwear and Dr. Hauschka products for myself. That’s it! A lazy R&R day for me. As Bobby McFerrin said it so well, “Don’t worry – be happy!”

In the morning I was on telephone duty for Melissa, as she was taking the solar batteries apart and readying them for a check-up in Madison, Indiana. Over three hours she called five times, each time after completing a step in the process which involved the battery acid. I was tickled indeed that she accomplished it all without incident! Whew!

And in the afternoon I went back to LabCorp and successfully gave a blood sample for a test which Dr. A. ordered to check my thyroid levels.

Mick went up to Avalon twice this morning with big trailer-loads of tree debris. Mel identified a couple of places along the access road where we needed the organic matter dumped to shore up the ravine-side, and so the old and rotted tree which Mick took down yesterday for a customer was trucked up to Avalon and dumped where it was needed. In the afternoon, he crunched leaves for several customers. We rendezvoused at bath time for a deliciously refreshing rest together, then enjoyed supper with Gary and the Gaia Meditation. Mick offered the closing prayer tonight.

2008-11-05

2008-11-06T06:38:00.002-05:00

As a gentle harvest sun beamed warm temperatures our way, Mick and I made our Morning Offering before Mick headed out into the sunshine for his day of mowing and gardening. For the first time this fall, he began to bag leaves for a customer whose crop last year was 239 bags! He now has collected his first 26 bags for 2008-9!

Meanwhile I continued to rest. I am surprised at how much my body is crying out for sleep. This is my third day of recovering from the Channeling Intensive 3. I still think it’s worth every effort I can offer, in order to continue our Great Experiment in ET channeling begun in 1962.

I did rework a few recipes, and I answered more questions from Terry H on TLOO, Book 5, which he is translating into Chinese.

I collaborated with Mick on getting the correct CD titles, artists’ names and song names for the tuning songs we played at CI-3, and sent them to Mike T, who had requested “a sound track of the weekend”.

And I made a lunch date with Laurinda S, the lady from St. Luke’s who was so gracious and kind as to knit up the rest of the blanket I was making for Kori C-D’s little one. I got halfway through the knitting last year when my shoulders gave out completely and I had to lay the project aside. Fortunately the finished blanket is big enough for a toddler!

In late afternoon I went to Dr. A for a check-up. She is concerned about my blood pressure and will change the dosage on my medication. I also had a blood test ordered and went to Vickie at LabCorp on the way home, but for the first time ever, skillful Vickie was unable to find blood. After four dry “sticks” she sent me home. She’ll try again tomorrow.

Mel spent her day doing research on the computer. She left at bath time. She will call me tomorrow morning to let me know if she wants me to come up to Avalon for back-up while she unhooks all the solar batteries in order to take them in for maintenance and checking. She suspects that one or more of the batteries is malfunctioning, because the system has started collecting much less power. There is a safety risk when working with battery acid, and she is understandably concerned about doing this alone, with not a neighbor for half a mile.

So I may drive up to Avalon tomorrow, which I would count as a treat. In the car today going to see Dr. A, I marveled anew at the glory of the autumn color. The burning bushes are very intense this year and the color in general is far more lively and vivid than in the past few years, which were more deeply droughty than this year has been. The little rain we had during August and September was just enough to give us a wonderful autumn.

Mel has found me the ladder I would like to give Mick for his Christmas present. It is called the Little Giant Ladder System M17. It’s a dandy! Mick’s favorite ladder, a hard-working friend on the job since 2001, disappeared from his truck earlier this year. Now Mel will find a ladder of that make to test in person, before I commit the money. Thanks, Mel!

Gary joined us for dinner, the Jon Stewart/Steve Colbert hour of drollery and political savvy and the Gaia Meditation, at which he offered the closing prayer.

2008-11-04

2008-11-05T07:12:00.002-05:00

We had a glorious Election Day! Kentucky weather can do this right through the first half of December! It was shirtsleeve weather as Mick and I got up early to vote. What a joy to cast our ballots for Obama! He has earned our respect and admiration.

We came back to Camelot to find that Melissa had arrived, down from Avalon for a couple of days of doing research, helping me and knocking out her town chores as well as having some rest and relaxation.

She and I went up to my bedroom after Morning Offering and switched out my seasonal clothes and shoes as well as rearranging my sweater collection so that all the sweaters that go with shades of purple and lavender are together. I'm thinking ahead to the days of my purple hair! I'll color it before Christmas.

What a delight to have my closet and shoe shelves in fine fettle once again, all set for winter. I could not believe that she got everything done in one morning! Kudos and thanks, Mel!

I was still desperately weary today, so again I gave myself permission to be lazy and snooze at will. I had a good nap during the afternoon, but I also got a few e-mails written. Three of them had to do with Eli’s formatting of my articles on Spiritual Hierarchies for a special issue of Both Sides Now (bothsidesnow@prodigy.net).

I answered two questions from Terry H of Taiwan on TLOO, Book 5. He is translating that final volume into Chinese! We have the handsome combined Chinese translation of TLOO 1-4 in our collection.

And I filled in my connection to LinkedIn for Julian D, who is busily networking, now that he is working for himself. Good Luck, Jules!

Lastly, I answered Halloween cards from Janet I and Dianne S. Dianne’s was a cute “genie.com” card and Janet sent me two photos of her as Spider Woman. She looked extremely fetching! Isn’t it odd that no one sends “Happy All Saint’s Day” cards? If you ask me, that holy day’s a far better cause for celebration than the ghosts and ghoulies of All-Hallow’s Even! But perhaps, not so much fun!

After our bath and some snuggle time, Mick and I joined Mel, Gary and Romi for an Election Results Pizza Party. Fortunately we had all voted for Obama, which made the party more bouncy as the evening wore on and Obama’s lead grew. We were a happy bunch! Romi brought some wine to add to the festivities, and we enjoyed sharing that also.

I offered the closing prayer at the Gaia Meditation tonight.

There had been an uproar about faulty electronic voting machines during this last few weeks, and I was very glad we got paper ballots here, but I am thrilled to say that there was no suspicion of foul play on the national scene this time around. After “selection” replaced the popular-vote election in 2000 and 2004, I had been prayerfully hoping that this election would happen honestly, and I believe it did. Thank you, Lord.

2008-11-03

2008-11-04T07:00:00.002-05:00

It has been the prettiest autumn day of the season, with southerly winds coaxing the thermometer to the mid-seventies amid glorious sunshine and the maples at their peak of color. It was a lovely day for me to take some rest. It felt so good to have the Channeling Intensive successfully completed! I napped and read, reworked some recipes and in general lazed.

In the early afternoon I took Talitha to the airport. She was our last attendee to depart. And around the edges of this leisurely day, I attended to a couple of critical e-mails.

I wrote Eli concerning the combined, four-part “On Spiritual Hierarchies” piece I had originally written for UPI, answering JoyousChee’s question. Eli wanted to know if I had a blurb on L/L Research with which he could fill in the remaining page, the one with the address label. After thought, I decided that the blurb we had was fine, and told him to write some copy for Both Sides Now in the remaining space.

And I sent Ian’s finished production of 101 to Gary so he would have it for working with blitzprint.

After Morning Offering, Mick departed on his rounds. He mowed two large acreages, and although the grass is no longer growing quickly, with the leaves falling his customers are thrilled that he can disintegrate them with his mowers' mulch plates and gator blades. When he finished those jobs, he gardened for two more customers.

Mick found me curled up in my bedroom when he came home, half-napping and half-reading, and bore me off to bath time, and then to a very jazzy date, after which I fell sound asleep! He shook me awake for supper and the Gaia Meditation, and I covered myself with ignominy by snoozing instead of meditating! One can carry “peace” thoughts too far! I took mine right into dreamland tonight! So Mick offered the closing prayer. I think I will sleep well tonight!

2008-11-02

2008-11-03T06:54:00.002-05:00

The last day of Channeling Intensive 3 was as warm as May Day and full of bright red maple leaves and birds at the feeder, Dan D playing on the back porch and sunshine embracing all. In the morning we studied the quotes on channeling, coming most of the way through 1987 – the database is chronologically arranged. In late morning we had Channeling Circle 12, in which the group took up a question about how to cultivate the desire to seek.

Lorena volunteered to be the lead-off channel, and the group again chose not to have the source transfer the contact around the circle, but rather await the group’s intuition on who was the next channel. It all worked very well, and we had a long and productive session. Indeed it only ended when it did, at almost 90 minutes, at my request – my IC symptoms were spiking and I desperately needed the bathroom!

In the afternoon we wound up the weekend’s work with a last hour of studying the channeling quotes database, ending at the beginning of 1988, which is where we will take up our studies at Channeling Intensive 4, early in 2009.

Steve T departed almost immediately thereafter, as did Lorena. Tom got his truck all gassed up and ready to leave. He plans to take Mike T to the airport at 4:00 tomorrow morning and then depart for Texas. I’ll be taking Talitha to the airport tomorrow at lunchtime. Gary and Mike put my Mama chair and laptop back in my upstairs office, which seemed to be the official ending of our very successful weekend gathering.

We ordered some pizza and enjoyed some episodes of House together before sitting for the Gaia Meditation. Talitha offered the closing prayer – I think! I was so weary that I was asleep in my chair for most of the evening! That weariness was a happy "tired", though. I think we were all elated that the weekend's work had gone so well!

2008-11-01

2008-11-02T05:59:00.002-05:00

Happy All Saint's Day!

We had another halcyon day for the Channeling Intensive. After Morning Offering, we launched into our study of the channeling database and moved through material from the archives for 1987, which is when Steve T began his studies with us, so he was very interested in spotting himself in the questions and responses quoted. Then we had a Channeling Circle session and broke for lunch. It was an interesting session, with the contact being transferred not around the circle as we usually have done, but randomly. This allowed each member to practice his awareness of the contact and his challenging technique.

During the break after lunch, I responded by e-mail to six questions from Ian, as he is most kindly producing the 101 manuscript for us. I would have sworn that our manuscript was squeaky clean, but Ian’s skilled eye keeps finding little things that need fixing. Praise the Lord for Ian’s eye!

I also took a nap with Mick before coming down for the afternoon sessions – another study period and then another channeling circle. The only member of the circle who had not yet been able to perceive a message was able in this session to do so, and we all cheered! The session took on Lorena’s question about humor and why it is good for people and for channels in particular.

We decided to go for supper to Captain’s Quarters, where we could look out over the Ohio River as the pink and mauve sunset framed a red-balled sun sinking slowly below the horizon. Their food was delicious and the company was wonderful. We got back just in time to offer the Gaia Meditation together. Romi offered the closing prayer.

I am weary, but in better shape than I could have hoped. The naps help! Tomorrow is the final day of Channeling Intensive 3. I will be sorry to see these good people leave. It has been a privilege and pleasure to work with them this weekend. There is an ocean of love in this little group.

2008-10-31

2008-11-01T07:10:00.004-04:00

Happy Hallowe'en! We had beautiful autumn weather for the Channeling Intensive's second day! The temperature rose to 70, while the sunshine poured through the house all day.

After Morning Offering, Mick departed for his regular Friday mowing, and Gary accompanied him until late morning, when he retrieved our last Channeling Circle member, Mike T, from the airport.

We in the Circle spent our morning studying quotes on channeling from the database of archive quotes which I had prepared for CI-2. We have read over 40 pages of those quotes now and are in 1987, when Steve T first began studying channeling with us.

Then we broke for tuning. I came up to tune and fell asleep in the middle of tuning, to my embarrassment, and had to be awoken! Lorena, who is hoping to start her own channeling group in Chicago after the first of the year, agreed to inaugurate the channeling this time, and Channeling Circle 8 ensued. It told a story of a two seekers finding each other through many hardships.

We broke for lunch and welcomed Mike. I then took an official nap, for there was a long break after lunch, and was a bit perkier for the afternoon. We again studied the quotes for an hour together, reading them aloud and commenting as we went. Then Mick and I took a bath – Mick had finished his mowing day in good style and had done his weekly maintenance on his gardening equipment – and tuned together before joining Channeling Circle 9.

This time Steve T took the lead and began the channeling. The subject of the session was the channeling process itself. Again, the practice went well. Some of the members are very much showing improvement with the repetition of our practice sessions. I am pleased!

We then took off, all except Talitha, who was having respiratory distress after attempting an autumn walk in the ragweed-laden air and coming back with asthma, for Gary’s favorite restaurant, Kashmir. It is an Indian restaurant with delicious tandooris and masalas and all manner of delicious things! We shared a bottle of wine for a good toast and laughed our way through the meal, happy with the moment and ourselves. We had such a good time!

At the end of the meal we offered the Gaia Meditation, holding hands around the table. Lorena offered the closing prayer. We brought take-away food back for Talitha.

Mick and I had a late date after the meal while the rest of the attendees stopped for dessert and coffee at Heine Brothers, a coffeehouse right next door to Kashmir. With perfect timing, as we roused from our afterglow, they returned and we got the upstairs office set-up of chair and laptop moved into my bedroom and a mattress set up in the office for Mike. We all said good-night around midnight.

2008-10-30

2008-10-31T06:51:00.003-04:00

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

2008-10-30T07:06:00.002-04:00

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

2008-10-29T06:07:00.002-04:00

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

2008-10-28T07:07:00.004-04:00

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

2008-10-27T10:31:00.002-04:00

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

2008-10-26T07:53:00.002-04:00

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

2008-10-25T07:48:00.002-04:00

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

2008-10-24T07:41:00.001-04:00

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

2008-10-23T12:10:00.007-04:00

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

2008-10-22T14:51:00.002-04:00

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

2008-10-21T10:31:00.002-04:00

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

2008-10-20T06:46:00.003-04:00

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

2008-10-19T07:33:00.001-04:00

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

2008-10-18T11:48:00.003-04:00

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

2008-10-17T10:56:00.002-04:00

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

2008-10-16T07:01:00.002-04:00

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

2008-10-15T07:05:00.002-04:00

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

2008-10-14T07:08:00.004-04:00

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

2008-10-13T09:57:00.002-04:00

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

2008-10-12T07:42:00.003-04:00

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

2008-10-11T07:51:00.005-04:00

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

2008-10-10T07:09:00.003-04:00

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

2008-10-09T07:05:00.003-04:00

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

2008-10-08T09:29:00.003-04:00

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

2008-10-07T09:57:00.001-04:00

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

2008-10-06T09:49:00.003-04:00

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

2008-10-05T07:23:00.004-04:00

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

2008-10-04T07:45:00.003-04:00

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

2008-10-03T07:25:00.003-04:00

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.