When the black hounds are calling, it's time to chuck a Tolstoy😉
Return to the outside.
When you're all up in your brain, tangled in the knots and weeds of thoughts, it is when you need to return to the simplicity (mental silence) of manual labor. Dig a hole. Build a fence. Plant a seed. Make a wall. Weed a square foot of ground. Even, shovel some manure😉
Return to simple act of physical labour. That's where you find the connection your craving, to self. Others sure, but we each need strong connection to self first, other wise the 2 way feedback that is connection to others, becomes scrambled, mixed signals and evolves to energy battles, not connections, and becomes exhaustive and overwhelming, instead of nurtured and fulfilling.
The zoom calls are great idea, but in the wrong medium, especially when yours/others sense of self is dialed to traumatised. You created a cave of like-minded soul's that are all scrambling for connection, but you cant find that in the darkened digital zone (I know, I used to be in tech).
Try "zoom" letters instead. Setup a post box for your readers. Each can write you. Their energy will be infused on the paper, so you'll feel the true connect. Then you craft a response, infusing your energy, etc. This allows space, time, thought and authentic, satisfying connection to grow.😊 BTJMO😉🤷♀️
In the meantime, go outside barefoot and give a great echoing howl back at the black dog. Let it know you see it, your not afraid of it, and your ready if it tries to come at you.🤗
Oh such wonderful ‘advice’…I have been wrestling with the loss of a ‘relationship’ I thought to be one of substance with a future, only to find as the time passed with this person it was not meant to be, as it was me doing all the giving, and having the occasional ‘emotional crumbs of love’ tossed back my way. I came to realize that I had been doing this for a long time, with romantic partners and even long time ‘friends’…accepting the crumbs they were willing to give me in return for my steadfast loyalty and love. I have felt this deep sense of loss in parting with this behavior that I recognize no longer serves me.
When I feel like I can no longer bear the sadness, I go out in my backyard, get barefoot, sit and pet my cat,
rake leaves, pull all the spring weeds, dead head the roses, water my garden, and let go. Let go, to make room in my heart for more equitable friendships and relationships…relationships that we all do crave and deserve these days. 💓💐🙏🏻
Yes, let go of the past and consciously, intentionally, break the pattern we have perpetuated all our lives. This can only happen when we see and know our part in not just accepting, but actually wanting such relationships, a dynamic set up early on, and taking responsibility for continuing it. I know this from lifelong experience in creating much pain for myself, only began to take responsibility for it in the past 5 years. It's all so clear to me now, that I am no longer drawn one iota to such dynamics; the only wincing comes occasionally when I realize how much of my life I spent in blindness to the narcissistic relationships I continued to create, how much time and energy I spent on others who were uncaring, to my own detriment and in fulfillment of my unquestioned saviour complex!
Thank you for such a nice reflection on my comment….Yes, you mentioned the key word…for me at least, “the narcissistic relationships”. For me it wasn’t so much a ‘savior complex’…I just wanted them to really see “me” and appreciate me, so the giving (with little in return) was in hopes of that. The narcissists can never “get enough”, they are like vampires in a way, in constant need of supply of your love and attention, but are so wounded that they need that attention to fill the hole inside themselves. Then when that hole isn’t filled and it isn’t enough, we become the “less than ones, the source of their problems”.
Well I’m done with that! I welcome and invite in ALL relationships (romantic and or friendships) that meet me halfway. Ones that the person wants to be with me for ME, as much as I want to be with them for who THEY are.
You didn't mention the main thing I wrote about, that WE are responsible for creating/having such difficult relationships because we need them, they feed us, which makes me think you missed my whole point. In your case, you gave of yourself in order to be seen, you hoped, which apparently didn't work. As I see it, to give in order to get something as you explain it is not true giving, rather, it's a manipulative hidden agenda, a desired exchange, masquerading as a loving nature. It doesn't sound like you understand your role in such relationships and own it, still only talking about how horrible the other person is. All the best.
Wow… as they say in 12 Step Groups, “you took my inventory’ big time, tied it all up in a bow and with what YOU feel was going on with me. Maybe you too need ‘validation’ to your words and when I didn’t “pick up on” what you feel I was them main point of your comment, you really went to town on figuring me all out.
I have to say we ALL at some time or another, do the ‘giving’, in the hopes of receiving back something, whatever that might be. Attention, love, time, money, gifts or whatever
I feel I have a pretty good grasp of what ‘my pattern’ was and it started with my Mother. And it ended when I realized I had yet ‘attracted’ a person into my life who had latent narcissistic tendencies, and was never going to be able to met me halfway in any way; emotionally, mentally, spiritually or financially. I totally understand what my “role was in these relationships” and I do not think of them as how ‘horrible’ the people were, that I was involved with. On the contrary, I have let them ALL GO WITH LOVE, and do not hold any ill will towards them, whatsoever. People show up in our lives for a “season or a reason”. I’m clear about what ‘lessons’ they all provided for me to learn over the course of my life.
And that is where you are totally off base about me. And as far a me “masquerading” as a person “with a loving nature” in these relationships, my inherent nature is loving and kind. I don’t have to pretend that I’m that way. I know this at my core.
My ‘pattern’ did not involve having a ‘savior’ complex, (as you have referred to yourself), nor the need to have to ‘save’ my mother or any of the friendships or men I was involved with. I never felt like it was a “my way or the highway” type of influence I was wishing to have over them. That I was the only person with all the answers, never was my agenda.
Well you have shown me here, you seem to be the kind of person that has “all the answers”, but respectfully you are way off base on this one, regarding me and my journey.
I wish you well on your journey of bringing in and attracting people into your life , that support you, and with whom you feel a degree of simpático with.
I don't pretend to have any answers...I just have my own experience whereby I wreaked lifelong havoc on myself into old age. Seeing my place in it, no one to blame, was hard as hell and left me with few viable relationships but so much better than continuing the awful pattern. The narcissists and I were perfect fits, moths to flames, that impulse in me now self-eradicated. I offered a response to what you wrote after carefully reading your words each time, don't need approval or agreement.
There is so much to read and so little time isn't there? I read this all in the email. It was delightfully interesting. I think my writer mother would appreciate your perspective. There is only so much screen-time my eyes can take. I for one would appreciate the opportunity to hear you read your postings as a podcast. I think it would be interesting to be able to post audio comments. Has anyone ever heard of a site like that? I think the AI surveillance prefers we enter text. Thank you Celia for being so delightfully human
Looking at a Mark Rothko painting, you don’t just see the painting, you feel the emotion that he intended to convey through the painting. In my opinion, you use words exactly like Rothko used paint.
I popped into one of those Zooms for long enough to consider what faith and courage it must require to take on such an experiment. It's a very brave endeavor to make space for things without knowing for certain what you can handle. I think that, when you love people, it's scary to watch them being brave. You're acutely aware of the possibility of suffering. Or humiliation.
My children have informed me that they experience my fear around that as judgement. Apparently, being both shame averse and protective makes me project shame... and induces shame. So I owe them a debt of gratitude for explaining this to me. I'm starting to see more of the courage.
I have adored Flannery O'Connor since my favorite teacher assigned it in our "God in Literature" course in the Catholic high school I attended graduated from back in the 80's. He also introduced us to Dostoyevsky, and Dante. Isn't that incredible? And we studied each book, not just read it... I loved "Wise Blood," which was the novel of O'Connor's we covered. I have always adored her work. Of course the Professional Class Liberals running things would need to label her a racist. Well by their definition, all of us whiteys are, so I guess it's not really much of a stretch.
I'm reading a summary of the short story by O'Connor.
A little bit of astrology helps with this. The bull is the sign of Taurus. It is said that planet Venus (Love) has rulership in Taurus. Also, the Moon is in exaltation in Taurus, whatever exaltation means in astrology.
The Gospel of Luke is actually a letter addressed to someone named Theophilos, which means, one who loves God.
In Christian Art, the four gospels and the four evangelists are associated with four symbols: Angel, Lion, Bull, Eagle. Luke is represented with the Bull. Perhaps the astrologers of the middle ages established the symbolic association of the sign of Taurus with Venus because of that.
But Venus is not only about romantic love, as the new-agers pretend.
In particular, Venus is also a reminder of the love of Christ for the Human Race. I remember there is something called the devotion of the Sacred Heart, often seen with a representation of a heart trespassed with the thorns of the crown. [I think it was the Jesuits who added the daggers to that symbol of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, but I don't know why.]
In the first chapter of the gospel of Luke, a few verses below the mention of Theophilus, appears the very famous Magnificat, said by Virgin Mary to Elizabeth, the old woman who was the mother of John the Baptist. There is no greater love than God remembering his love for his creation.
And love has to be constant, stubborn, intense. In this time of year, it is also very tangible. Spring seems to be the the time where the earth heals itself, to support all life. Later in the year love becomes more mental. In October and November people tend to forget love and get busy with the works of the Autumn, until December, because that's the time to stop and contemplate all the wonders of the year. Only at the end of the year we remember all the love we leave aside for later.
Venus is always near the Sun, never in opposition. It seems that natural life depends on the Sun as much as on Love. A codependency! (haha)
"'O’Connor left the literary world in a very uncomfortable bind, God bless her. “One of our greatest American writers was a ..serious Christian.'”
So, inconveniently, was Emily Dickinson, which is why she is not taken more seriously now by the kind of people ruined Blok's world and are ruining ours. The kind of people who find freedom and truth "uncomfortable".
"My period had come for prayer. No other art would do. My tactics missed a rudiment. Creator, was it you?
"God grows above, so those who pray horizons must ascend. And so I stepped upon the north to see this curious friend.
"His house was not. No sign had he by chimney, nor by door. Could I infer his residence?
"Vast prairies of air, unbroken by a settler, were all that I could see. Infinitude, hadst thou no face that I "might look on thee?
"The silence condescended. Creation stopped for me, but allowed beyond my errand, I worshipped. "Did not 'pray'”.
C.S. Lewis has also become "uncomfortable" for the same icky people... he was not only a Christian but wrote volumes about it (I'm working through them now).
I have been so blessed to grow up with the blues, where getting into sadness is like, I don't know, going into an ice-bath, a thing on my mind from living in a place where we have just had all kinds of warnings about how-not-to-die in excess heat. Signs for ice-baths are spiking up, to go with "co-work" signs, although some places do not want lap-toppers sitting all day in their establishments. Getting one's cold-shock proteins goes along with what I see as free sauna, provided by God. Fads and fashions cause me to wrinkle my brows. I usually just don't know what to think of fashion.
I found out Donald Trump was in Wildwood NJ today by chancing upon a twitter feed, and was sort of impressed that the broadcast host's main complaint was about flight cancellations when having to travel to such a place. Then he said the price to park a car there runs $50 to $100, and there were 80,000 people just about who drove out there. This didn't seem to faze Trump when he finally took the stage, where what he did for an hour or so was motivate his believers to buy changes to the economy that he will see happen. I thought he's like selling killing yourself in the Kinocene some more, which a Prof. Thomas Nail addresses in a youtube now two years old-- http://youtube.com/watch?v=uoJTs1wpGQU . Seems like finding yourself has been the main challenge in the U.S.A. since Henry Ford started the automobile assembly line, and souless suburbs spread through the landscape, connected by interstate highways since under President Eisenhower.
Henry Ford paid his workers decent wages w/o prompting from a leftist union. If America had remained w/ industrial capitalism instead of switching to finance capitalism we wouldn't be under globalist thrall today. We are uniquely self-sufficient/defended in geography and resources. MAGA appeals to that forgotten knowledge albeit w/ a false promise because Trump is sold out to neo-conservatism.
From what I read about Henry Ford, guys showed up in Dearborne and Detroit in the 1910s and 20s who would have been otherwise homeless without jobs in the factory, where Ford liked to watch which worker backed down when assigned to a particular place on the floor. The toughest survived. There was a showdown outside the plant where Ford sent in secret goons to fight or intimidate the strikers, gunfire was resorted to, and a Nazi delegation observed, taking points from the methods employed. The commercial culture that sold the automobiles was pioneered by Freud's nephew, Edward Bernays, whose science of public opinion research and consumer motivation went on to manage American electoral politics. Now you can't get away from the crazy alarum, where folks used to read the papers in a haberdashery or on the front porch and not be bothered by all the nonsense, and having to fly or drive everywhere essential for a career or maintainance of family ties, weds everybody to the machine, with increasing burnout, from which A.I. and digital twins will supposedly relieve us. We'll be like ghosts hearing voices.
Ford didn't need Bernays to create a fake image for his cars. At a time when only the wealthy could afford the first automobiles, Ford's 1913 innovation and implementation of the moving "assembly line" reduced the time it took to build a car from 12 hours to just 90 minutes. Ford was determined to build “motor cars for the multitude." He said: "When I’m through,” everybody will have one.” He wanted his workers to be able to afford his cars.
I'll go as far as to say there was a modicum of luck as to who'd be able to afford driving their personal automobile going into the 1980s or 90s, possibly for the sole purpose of being lucky. The Romans had questions about luck or Fortuna that St. Augustine addressed in his opus, The City of God. He said what the well to do mistakenly worshipped as Fortuna was a passable simulacrum, but what they in fact had was a command technics that depended upon making a great many others creatures of necessity, and their system was apparantly not bound for continued success, since the workforce could more or less knock off in pursuit of thought or an underground economy. Fortuna's a woman who might despise one or all comers. She's not where there can't be no escape.
Hope is not the conviction that something will turn out well, but the certainty that something makes sense, regardless of how it turns out_ Vaclav Havel
Whenever I read your posts my heart breaks and I try to find words to express my love and something even more than love I can’t find words to express for your honesty and deep humaneness and willingness to tell us how you are, how you feel. I just read “Jack” Marilynne Robinson, it made me cry. 💕💕💕
Loved this piece Celia! And I totally get what you mean by the burden of the responsibility of everyone's feelings.... plus Im delighted to hear you are doing carnivore...cant think of anything more likely to cure your blues. I am just restarting carnivore (for other health reasons). Keep up the good work. Caroline xxxxxx
What made you stop last time, if you don't mind my curiosity?
I come on and off carnivore. Sometimes I'm only interested in eggs. Sometimes, only broth and a few selected vegetables that I like.
Sometimes only fish. Sometimes I go back to bread and sugar, and I soon repent from that.
Overall, fresh meat is the greatest food. Better than anything dry or derived from it.
As former physician who ascended to the status of a comedian said once "food is anything that was alive until very recently."
Notice how 'anything that was a dry powder' until very recently does not match the definition.
I need some digestion aid. A tea made from licorice root does the trick, but it also gives me too much sleepiness, I don't know why.
In general, roots of plants are more powerful than leaves. Except for tropical plants, where a plant leaf can kill a man faster than a polar bear, mainly because polar bears know better than messing around with tropical plants.
My 18 year old son does keto/carnivore to help his bipolar and stop weight gain from the meds. I am wary of doing keto/carnivore long term because of the work of Ray Peat/Georgie Dinkov/Mercola who all say that as a therapy its useful but longterm it can be bad for you. For my son its worth it to do it long term (see Chris Palmer, Harvard Psychiatrist who wrote Brain Energy). For me I love it for how good it makes me feel and how easy it is to lose weight and the mental clarity it brings. But I cant do it (I am probably about to stop again) atm because I seem to have a chronic bug in my gut which means if I do carnivore I just get the runs (carnivore does not do that to me when my gut is healthy.) You asked!!!
Jennifer Daniels used to follow the scientific dietary truth of her younger days, and had to change that a bit because it was not working. That document is a pretty funny read.
He teaches to use the much demonized white sugar (either in powder form or in cubes) as bait for parasites. Then, they get hit with the turpentine.
For your son I recommend something stronger than turpentine: Arthur Schopenhauer. If he doesn't like to read, he can put pages in the blender to prepare an ideally funny smoothie. I don't advise to drink it, but destruction can be fun.
When the black hounds are calling, it's time to chuck a Tolstoy😉
Return to the outside.
When you're all up in your brain, tangled in the knots and weeds of thoughts, it is when you need to return to the simplicity (mental silence) of manual labor. Dig a hole. Build a fence. Plant a seed. Make a wall. Weed a square foot of ground. Even, shovel some manure😉
Return to simple act of physical labour. That's where you find the connection your craving, to self. Others sure, but we each need strong connection to self first, other wise the 2 way feedback that is connection to others, becomes scrambled, mixed signals and evolves to energy battles, not connections, and becomes exhaustive and overwhelming, instead of nurtured and fulfilling.
The zoom calls are great idea, but in the wrong medium, especially when yours/others sense of self is dialed to traumatised. You created a cave of like-minded soul's that are all scrambling for connection, but you cant find that in the darkened digital zone (I know, I used to be in tech).
Try "zoom" letters instead. Setup a post box for your readers. Each can write you. Their energy will be infused on the paper, so you'll feel the true connect. Then you craft a response, infusing your energy, etc. This allows space, time, thought and authentic, satisfying connection to grow.😊 BTJMO😉🤷♀️
In the meantime, go outside barefoot and give a great echoing howl back at the black dog. Let it know you see it, your not afraid of it, and your ready if it tries to come at you.🤗
Oh such wonderful ‘advice’…I have been wrestling with the loss of a ‘relationship’ I thought to be one of substance with a future, only to find as the time passed with this person it was not meant to be, as it was me doing all the giving, and having the occasional ‘emotional crumbs of love’ tossed back my way. I came to realize that I had been doing this for a long time, with romantic partners and even long time ‘friends’…accepting the crumbs they were willing to give me in return for my steadfast loyalty and love. I have felt this deep sense of loss in parting with this behavior that I recognize no longer serves me.
When I feel like I can no longer bear the sadness, I go out in my backyard, get barefoot, sit and pet my cat,
rake leaves, pull all the spring weeds, dead head the roses, water my garden, and let go. Let go, to make room in my heart for more equitable friendships and relationships…relationships that we all do crave and deserve these days. 💓💐🙏🏻
Yes, let go of the past and consciously, intentionally, break the pattern we have perpetuated all our lives. This can only happen when we see and know our part in not just accepting, but actually wanting such relationships, a dynamic set up early on, and taking responsibility for continuing it. I know this from lifelong experience in creating much pain for myself, only began to take responsibility for it in the past 5 years. It's all so clear to me now, that I am no longer drawn one iota to such dynamics; the only wincing comes occasionally when I realize how much of my life I spent in blindness to the narcissistic relationships I continued to create, how much time and energy I spent on others who were uncaring, to my own detriment and in fulfillment of my unquestioned saviour complex!
Thank you for such a nice reflection on my comment….Yes, you mentioned the key word…for me at least, “the narcissistic relationships”. For me it wasn’t so much a ‘savior complex’…I just wanted them to really see “me” and appreciate me, so the giving (with little in return) was in hopes of that. The narcissists can never “get enough”, they are like vampires in a way, in constant need of supply of your love and attention, but are so wounded that they need that attention to fill the hole inside themselves. Then when that hole isn’t filled and it isn’t enough, we become the “less than ones, the source of their problems”.
Well I’m done with that! I welcome and invite in ALL relationships (romantic and or friendships) that meet me halfway. Ones that the person wants to be with me for ME, as much as I want to be with them for who THEY are.
You didn't mention the main thing I wrote about, that WE are responsible for creating/having such difficult relationships because we need them, they feed us, which makes me think you missed my whole point. In your case, you gave of yourself in order to be seen, you hoped, which apparently didn't work. As I see it, to give in order to get something as you explain it is not true giving, rather, it's a manipulative hidden agenda, a desired exchange, masquerading as a loving nature. It doesn't sound like you understand your role in such relationships and own it, still only talking about how horrible the other person is. All the best.
Wow… as they say in 12 Step Groups, “you took my inventory’ big time, tied it all up in a bow and with what YOU feel was going on with me. Maybe you too need ‘validation’ to your words and when I didn’t “pick up on” what you feel I was them main point of your comment, you really went to town on figuring me all out.
I have to say we ALL at some time or another, do the ‘giving’, in the hopes of receiving back something, whatever that might be. Attention, love, time, money, gifts or whatever
I feel I have a pretty good grasp of what ‘my pattern’ was and it started with my Mother. And it ended when I realized I had yet ‘attracted’ a person into my life who had latent narcissistic tendencies, and was never going to be able to met me halfway in any way; emotionally, mentally, spiritually or financially. I totally understand what my “role was in these relationships” and I do not think of them as how ‘horrible’ the people were, that I was involved with. On the contrary, I have let them ALL GO WITH LOVE, and do not hold any ill will towards them, whatsoever. People show up in our lives for a “season or a reason”. I’m clear about what ‘lessons’ they all provided for me to learn over the course of my life.
And that is where you are totally off base about me. And as far a me “masquerading” as a person “with a loving nature” in these relationships, my inherent nature is loving and kind. I don’t have to pretend that I’m that way. I know this at my core.
My ‘pattern’ did not involve having a ‘savior’ complex, (as you have referred to yourself), nor the need to have to ‘save’ my mother or any of the friendships or men I was involved with. I never felt like it was a “my way or the highway” type of influence I was wishing to have over them. That I was the only person with all the answers, never was my agenda.
Well you have shown me here, you seem to be the kind of person that has “all the answers”, but respectfully you are way off base on this one, regarding me and my journey.
I wish you well on your journey of bringing in and attracting people into your life , that support you, and with whom you feel a degree of simpático with.
Vaya con Dios 🙏🏻
I don't pretend to have any answers...I just have my own experience whereby I wreaked lifelong havoc on myself into old age. Seeing my place in it, no one to blame, was hard as hell and left me with few viable relationships but so much better than continuing the awful pattern. The narcissists and I were perfect fits, moths to flames, that impulse in me now self-eradicated. I offered a response to what you wrote after carefully reading your words each time, don't need approval or agreement.
There is so much to read and so little time isn't there? I read this all in the email. It was delightfully interesting. I think my writer mother would appreciate your perspective. There is only so much screen-time my eyes can take. I for one would appreciate the opportunity to hear you read your postings as a podcast. I think it would be interesting to be able to post audio comments. Has anyone ever heard of a site like that? I think the AI surveillance prefers we enter text. Thank you Celia for being so delightfully human
Looking at a Mark Rothko painting, you don’t just see the painting, you feel the emotion that he intended to convey through the painting. In my opinion, you use words exactly like Rothko used paint.
Beautiful piece.
I popped into one of those Zooms for long enough to consider what faith and courage it must require to take on such an experiment. It's a very brave endeavor to make space for things without knowing for certain what you can handle. I think that, when you love people, it's scary to watch them being brave. You're acutely aware of the possibility of suffering. Or humiliation.
My children have informed me that they experience my fear around that as judgement. Apparently, being both shame averse and protective makes me project shame... and induces shame. So I owe them a debt of gratitude for explaining this to me. I'm starting to see more of the courage.
And you have courage.
Beautiful essay, Celia.
I have adored Flannery O'Connor since my favorite teacher assigned it in our "God in Literature" course in the Catholic high school I attended graduated from back in the 80's. He also introduced us to Dostoyevsky, and Dante. Isn't that incredible? And we studied each book, not just read it... I loved "Wise Blood," which was the novel of O'Connor's we covered. I have always adored her work. Of course the Professional Class Liberals running things would need to label her a racist. Well by their definition, all of us whiteys are, so I guess it's not really much of a stretch.
In the evening darkness at a place outside New York, an outlook where
you can perceive eight million people’s homes in
a single glance.
The giant city there is a long flickering drift, a spiral galaxy
from the side.
I know too -- without statistics -- that Schubert’s being played in
some room there and for someone the tones at this moment
are more real than anything else.
Like when the light goes out on the stairs and the hand follows --
with confidence -- the blind banister that finds its way in the
darkness.
-- The opening lines of Tomas Tranströmer’s poem “Schubertiana”
!!!!!!!
I think the bull is a symbol of Love.
I'm reading a summary of the short story by O'Connor.
A little bit of astrology helps with this. The bull is the sign of Taurus. It is said that planet Venus (Love) has rulership in Taurus. Also, the Moon is in exaltation in Taurus, whatever exaltation means in astrology.
The Gospel of Luke is actually a letter addressed to someone named Theophilos, which means, one who loves God.
In Christian Art, the four gospels and the four evangelists are associated with four symbols: Angel, Lion, Bull, Eagle. Luke is represented with the Bull. Perhaps the astrologers of the middle ages established the symbolic association of the sign of Taurus with Venus because of that.
But Venus is not only about romantic love, as the new-agers pretend.
In particular, Venus is also a reminder of the love of Christ for the Human Race. I remember there is something called the devotion of the Sacred Heart, often seen with a representation of a heart trespassed with the thorns of the crown. [I think it was the Jesuits who added the daggers to that symbol of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, but I don't know why.]
In the first chapter of the gospel of Luke, a few verses below the mention of Theophilus, appears the very famous Magnificat, said by Virgin Mary to Elizabeth, the old woman who was the mother of John the Baptist. There is no greater love than God remembering his love for his creation.
And love has to be constant, stubborn, intense. In this time of year, it is also very tangible. Spring seems to be the the time where the earth heals itself, to support all life. Later in the year love becomes more mental. In October and November people tend to forget love and get busy with the works of the Autumn, until December, because that's the time to stop and contemplate all the wonders of the year. Only at the end of the year we remember all the love we leave aside for later.
Venus is always near the Sun, never in opposition. It seems that natural life depends on the Sun as much as on Love. A codependency! (haha)
I love this place.
Good 'ol Bachman Turner Overdrive(word play in brackets),
"Takin' Care of Business":
"... I never get annoyed
at being self-employed (self-absorbed)
I love to work (think)
at (of) nothin' all day!"
De-programming from the neurotic programming.
"'O’Connor left the literary world in a very uncomfortable bind, God bless her. “One of our greatest American writers was a ..serious Christian.'”
So, inconveniently, was Emily Dickinson, which is why she is not taken more seriously now by the kind of people ruined Blok's world and are ruining ours. The kind of people who find freedom and truth "uncomfortable".
"My period had come for prayer. No other art would do. My tactics missed a rudiment. Creator, was it you?
"God grows above, so those who pray horizons must ascend. And so I stepped upon the north to see this curious friend.
"His house was not. No sign had he by chimney, nor by door. Could I infer his residence?
"Vast prairies of air, unbroken by a settler, were all that I could see. Infinitude, hadst thou no face that I "might look on thee?
"The silence condescended. Creation stopped for me, but allowed beyond my errand, I worshipped. "Did not 'pray'”.
C.S. Lewis has also become "uncomfortable" for the same icky people... he was not only a Christian but wrote volumes about it (I'm working through them now).
I have been so blessed to grow up with the blues, where getting into sadness is like, I don't know, going into an ice-bath, a thing on my mind from living in a place where we have just had all kinds of warnings about how-not-to-die in excess heat. Signs for ice-baths are spiking up, to go with "co-work" signs, although some places do not want lap-toppers sitting all day in their establishments. Getting one's cold-shock proteins goes along with what I see as free sauna, provided by God. Fads and fashions cause me to wrinkle my brows. I usually just don't know what to think of fashion.
I took a 3 minute ice bath today. I love ice baths!
I found out Donald Trump was in Wildwood NJ today by chancing upon a twitter feed, and was sort of impressed that the broadcast host's main complaint was about flight cancellations when having to travel to such a place. Then he said the price to park a car there runs $50 to $100, and there were 80,000 people just about who drove out there. This didn't seem to faze Trump when he finally took the stage, where what he did for an hour or so was motivate his believers to buy changes to the economy that he will see happen. I thought he's like selling killing yourself in the Kinocene some more, which a Prof. Thomas Nail addresses in a youtube now two years old-- http://youtube.com/watch?v=uoJTs1wpGQU . Seems like finding yourself has been the main challenge in the U.S.A. since Henry Ford started the automobile assembly line, and souless suburbs spread through the landscape, connected by interstate highways since under President Eisenhower.
Henry Ford paid his workers decent wages w/o prompting from a leftist union. If America had remained w/ industrial capitalism instead of switching to finance capitalism we wouldn't be under globalist thrall today. We are uniquely self-sufficient/defended in geography and resources. MAGA appeals to that forgotten knowledge albeit w/ a false promise because Trump is sold out to neo-conservatism.
From what I read about Henry Ford, guys showed up in Dearborne and Detroit in the 1910s and 20s who would have been otherwise homeless without jobs in the factory, where Ford liked to watch which worker backed down when assigned to a particular place on the floor. The toughest survived. There was a showdown outside the plant where Ford sent in secret goons to fight or intimidate the strikers, gunfire was resorted to, and a Nazi delegation observed, taking points from the methods employed. The commercial culture that sold the automobiles was pioneered by Freud's nephew, Edward Bernays, whose science of public opinion research and consumer motivation went on to manage American electoral politics. Now you can't get away from the crazy alarum, where folks used to read the papers in a haberdashery or on the front porch and not be bothered by all the nonsense, and having to fly or drive everywhere essential for a career or maintainance of family ties, weds everybody to the machine, with increasing burnout, from which A.I. and digital twins will supposedly relieve us. We'll be like ghosts hearing voices.
Ford didn't need Bernays to create a fake image for his cars. At a time when only the wealthy could afford the first automobiles, Ford's 1913 innovation and implementation of the moving "assembly line" reduced the time it took to build a car from 12 hours to just 90 minutes. Ford was determined to build “motor cars for the multitude." He said: "When I’m through,” everybody will have one.” He wanted his workers to be able to afford his cars.
I'll go as far as to say there was a modicum of luck as to who'd be able to afford driving their personal automobile going into the 1980s or 90s, possibly for the sole purpose of being lucky. The Romans had questions about luck or Fortuna that St. Augustine addressed in his opus, The City of God. He said what the well to do mistakenly worshipped as Fortuna was a passable simulacrum, but what they in fact had was a command technics that depended upon making a great many others creatures of necessity, and their system was apparantly not bound for continued success, since the workforce could more or less knock off in pursuit of thought or an underground economy. Fortuna's a woman who might despise one or all comers. She's not where there can't be no escape.
I enjoyed the three zoom meetings I participated in.
Although, the last one I didn't talk or activated the video, but I was there until I fell asleep. It was a fun evening.
Thank you for organizing these meetings. Nice people there.
Hope is not the conviction that something will turn out well, but the certainty that something makes sense, regardless of how it turns out_ Vaclav Havel
Thanks for your work. I tried to do zoo ms for things. It was tough. I largely have given up.
Whenever I read your posts my heart breaks and I try to find words to express my love and something even more than love I can’t find words to express for your honesty and deep humaneness and willingness to tell us how you are, how you feel. I just read “Jack” Marilynne Robinson, it made me cry. 💕💕💕
Loved this piece Celia! And I totally get what you mean by the burden of the responsibility of everyone's feelings.... plus Im delighted to hear you are doing carnivore...cant think of anything more likely to cure your blues. I am just restarting carnivore (for other health reasons). Keep up the good work. Caroline xxxxxx
What made you stop last time, if you don't mind my curiosity?
I come on and off carnivore. Sometimes I'm only interested in eggs. Sometimes, only broth and a few selected vegetables that I like.
Sometimes only fish. Sometimes I go back to bread and sugar, and I soon repent from that.
Overall, fresh meat is the greatest food. Better than anything dry or derived from it.
As former physician who ascended to the status of a comedian said once "food is anything that was alive until very recently."
Notice how 'anything that was a dry powder' until very recently does not match the definition.
I need some digestion aid. A tea made from licorice root does the trick, but it also gives me too much sleepiness, I don't know why.
In general, roots of plants are more powerful than leaves. Except for tropical plants, where a plant leaf can kill a man faster than a polar bear, mainly because polar bears know better than messing around with tropical plants.
It's good to experiment a bit now and again.
My 18 year old son does keto/carnivore to help his bipolar and stop weight gain from the meds. I am wary of doing keto/carnivore long term because of the work of Ray Peat/Georgie Dinkov/Mercola who all say that as a therapy its useful but longterm it can be bad for you. For my son its worth it to do it long term (see Chris Palmer, Harvard Psychiatrist who wrote Brain Energy). For me I love it for how good it makes me feel and how easy it is to lose weight and the mental clarity it brings. But I cant do it (I am probably about to stop again) atm because I seem to have a chronic bug in my gut which means if I do carnivore I just get the runs (carnivore does not do that to me when my gut is healthy.) You asked!!!
I recommend turpentine therapy, your bug is gonna love it.
See this document: https://archive.org/download/turp_candida_daniels/turp_candida_daniels.pdf
Jennifer Daniels used to follow the scientific dietary truth of her younger days, and had to change that a bit because it was not working. That document is a pretty funny read.
He teaches to use the much demonized white sugar (either in powder form or in cubes) as bait for parasites. Then, they get hit with the turpentine.
For your son I recommend something stronger than turpentine: Arthur Schopenhauer. If he doesn't like to read, he can put pages in the blender to prepare an ideally funny smoothie. I don't advise to drink it, but destruction can be fun.
Uncle Arthur is much better than Nietzsche.