Who supplies the context - you or your audience?

 You have the novel of your life in your head. War and Peace - hundreds of pages. On a given day you recall and relate a few short bits to others.  But these vignettes are entirely without context to some listeners and they could conclude things you didn't intend. 

You know the whole of it. It's hard for you relate to the few statements you've made without the context of your self-knowledge. However other people may reach  conclusions that are inaccurate projections relating to their experiences, their imaginings, their hopes or fears. 

They say the devil is in the details.... The ones you forget to say and the ones listeners supply......

DO NOT TRUST "VOTESAFE" -DOT -ORG

 It's NOT a voter registration site  -- It's a data collection site. Not only does it sell the info you enter into it  - it hoovers up your browser history, location history and device data, past purchases, interests AND SELLS YOUR DATA to its associated businesses -- but doesn't actually register you to vote.

LET ME REPEAT --- IT DOES NOT REGISTER YOU TO VOTE.

It's designed to look like vote.org which is a voter registration site. The guy with the chainsaw from doge created it. He has motives alright.

BE CAREFUL PEOPLE. 

POEM: Ashes to Ashes into brick - on coalitions of the formerly powerless

 Ashes to Ashes*

Dust has no tongue,

hasn't a song,
wields no pen,
no tools for building or carving,
scumbles no brushes
in maddening rhythms.

Dust does not long for nor aspire.
Dust lies in random arrangement,

drifts will-less though the cracks under doors,
accumulates behind the tassels of bedspreads,
in the dim beneath of things.

Dampened  with a measure of tears,

pressed by hardship to a mold,
dust becomes brick,
paves the way,
shoulders a roof,
shatters plate glass with aplomb.

                    - Mad Mar Walker (Mistryel)

* published in heck I forget where

Club America, Members Only

One of the consequences of 9/11 is the extended backlash against immigrants, even visitors or folks on work or student visas. Even citizens who display evidence of "otherness."  Some of us have gone back to Joe McCarthy's ways.

 

There is such irony that people whose ancestors came here to flee oppression, seek opportunity, find freedom, find home - they don't want to pass it on. While I don't believe in open borders -- I do believe in the melting pot, in asylum and a pathway to entry and to citizenship. There once was a long negotiated bipartisan immigration bill passed that 45|47 squashed because he wanted to run on the issue. That's bad form. 

This poem dates from 2005 published in A First Tuesday in Wilton an anthology, edited by Rose Drew and Alan Gillot and printed by Stairwell Press. It was then titled The Get Away. 

Club America, Members Only

Outside
=========
a locked gate waiting.
Socked-in, Statue of Liberty's
harbor gone grey.
Ellis Island, your sentimental
push-button displays,
sepia-toned icons, a memory
of distance and desperation,
clutched burlap bundles, dented
suitcases, hand-written name tags,
befuddled seekers. almost home.

Now you welcome

only tourists. Neon bloodies

your halls of remembrance:

"No Vacancy * No Vacancy * No Vacancy"

Close the airports!

Close the Brooklyn Bridge!

The children of the children

of the formerly oppressed

want to seal the borders

with invisible force fields

with infallible alien detection devices

and declare

"CLUB AMERICA -  MEMBERS ONLY!"

So take back your tired, and your

poor, your huddled masses yearning....

Give them a cell

with room service, limited menu,

meticulously kept steel bunks.

STOP - PACK UP!

Fold your love of FREEDOM,

tuck it in.

Fold your sweat up with your dreams,

Forget about your son in Cinncinati.

Do not pass. Do not collect. Go directly. Go back

================

Outside

Enough said. Or never enough said.

 This is a photo of a poster from years ago.....

A sweepstakes poem inspired by the old print Contest Newsletter*

Send in your post card, post card!

Fabulous prizes you can win so
be sure to send your entry in....

Write down your name, address, your zip
so we can save and catalog it!

(We'll sell it to marketers you don't know
- they got things to sell and wares to show.)

So send in Your name address your zip
- we'll sell it for decades in triplicate!

Be sure to send your entry in, for
fabulous prizes you can win!

-------

*The original founders of Contest Newsletter were a couple whose hobby turned into a newsletter with several million subscribers.  It all because too much I guess. and they sold it -- but the new owner turned out to be a mailing list company who really only wanted the subscribers list. Comprised mainly of seniors and folks willing to respond to adds and offers with a post card - it was a valuable list, nick-named "The suckers list."  This was just before online contest entries became a thing. Ah well.

The state of wonder.

 This is very old writing of mine. I thought it might be time to put it up here....

At Hogsback in VT, photo by R. Nethercott

The story of MANY and ONE

3 states of being, 2 properties of the cosmos

Old but mischievous children had gathered to hear this old one’s tale. They whispered to each other. Each had a different hat and a different face and different way of speaking. They laughed and drew pictures in the dirt with sticks because they were merry children though they were not young. Each had traveled many years to hear the particular words of this tale.

The ancient sat cross-legged on a log. The fire light lit the grey eyes and translucent skin and the white hair. A faint smile flickered also.

“Many and One, whose other name is ALL greets you and is you,” the old one began. The whispers stopped. The fire hissed and danced. Her voice was neither young nor old, neither sharp nor soft.

“Before the path of ALL was ONE,” she said.

“And ONE was at peace, without dimension or division or dissension or delusion. And that is the first state and the best. The undifferentiated state of one..”

One. One. ONE. The name of ONE burst in whispers down rows of attentive children. Some sat forward on logs or stones, some crouched, some leaned against trees. A few reclined in the grass.

“And after ONE sat silent, being and containing Unity, containing the matrix of the ONE endless formless self for many millennia, the ONE became curious. And that is the second state and is also the best: The state of curiosity.”

Curious. Curious. Curious. The word rippled among the children like wind through meadow grasses.

“And what the ONE was curious about was what might happen if the ONE mind concentrated all its thought on only one intersection at the center of the matrix of the One formless self.  And it was so.

“And from the thought of the One, matter sprang into being, expanding into the formless, endless self of the ONE> And it was entirely the thought of the One, and it was also the energy of the One and it was, itself, the One.

“Yet is was various -- so the One became Many and One, whose other name is ALL.

ALL. ALL. ALL. The children set to whispering again.

“And from that first property of All - Unity, came the second simultaneous property of All - which is Variety.  And from those two great properties of Many and one, come our unity and variety.

 And even so, we ourselves are many and one and all life and all that is and is not: all is many and one - Unity and Variety

And all that is, and all that is not -  All is the thought of the One, and energy of the one, and is, itself, One - Many and One whose other name is All.

And after Many and One became and sent matter and energy spinning and expanding into the undulation of time; the one mind marveled at the Variety, and at the Unity, and at the expanding bubble. And Many and One, All was filled with Wonder and delight. And that is the third state, which is also the best: the state of Wonder.”

Data Centers in Space? ....nope.

 Pipe Dream! Peter Zeihan explains why in detail! So MANY reasons!

 

Baby Monarch caterpillar eating like crazy

 

Though I just saw a Monarch butterfly on this plant yesterday - today I noticed something had eaten holes in a few milkweed leaves  I looked closer and someone had apparently laid a few eggs weeks ago, because one had hatched. Maybe the egg for this little caterpillar came pre-installed on the plant when I bought it! Excited.

Monarch on the milkweed!

 

Since I moved to a condo; I've been missing the idea of seeing Monarch butterflies. The place I left had a wild and weedy front yard with 20 plus milkweed plants. My dilemma now\was: where could I plant some milkweed where landscapers wouldn't weed-wack it?  It had to be potted....

The first week of July I finally bought one native milkweed plant in a pot at a local nursery. I re-potted it in a larger container and set it in the sun near my deck. This morning as I was drinking coffee, taking in the breeze, planning the day, an orange blur fluttered past! This gorgeous Monarch zeroed in on my lone milkweed plant and spent around 20 minutes investigating every leaf. Nothing like some unexpected nature to make your day!

I'm hoping eggs were laid and we might see a caterpillar or two later in the season!