Wow.

Surprise!  Don't get cocky or shout what you plan - YOU ARE NOT IN POWER YET. And DJT as a lame duck may make some awful moves and his cabinet enable him as a last ditch stab. Do not relax your vigilance. Expect subterfuge!

Existential dread

 Well, it's US election day, 2026. Today I am struck by the morose thought that no matter what the outcome, and no matter what is said (on and on) about the outcome -- we will NEVER NEVER be the same. 

The near world and the greater world have been irrevocably broken in a way that cannot be repaired in 2 years, four years, eight years, even ten years. We have, or our leader has essentially played an international game of 52 pickup -- thrown all the known processes & alliances into the air and where they will land is anyone's guess. 

Though a quite a few have been slipped into someone's suit pocket.  

If you voted for a shake up a while back, babe you got it. Maybe not the way you wanted... 

If Dems ride the wave today - they will be full of optimism. What is the expression -"many a slip twixt the cup and the lip"!! Will the prez Jan 6 it again? Possibly with Military assistance. Even if by some miracle a new Dem congress is seated. How will that work with the current administration still in place - one which pays little attention to what the law is, who makes the law, or who supposedly controls the purse. I suspect things will go on and get messier still: wars and purges AI SNAFUS, as the planet seems to dry and drown, freeze and burn in equal measure. 

The next decade may consist of constant accusation, name calling, prurient projection and endless threats and court cases, requests for injunction, defamation suits and bullshit contributions by corporations, upstarts and billionaires trying to own us or replace us with weird looking robots. Or get rid of us in South American gulags or mass graves -- the secretary of "war" is forcing the troops to practice digging huge trenches with giant earth-moving machines. All the while we are thinking that's for Iran. Sure it is.

I might be in a bad mood or maybe it's the Covid shot I had yesterday, or I just might be wrong or underestimating the coming generations ability to creatively find a way to persist at living.  Fingers crossed.

And yes I voted, first day of early voting. You have to try. Whoever you are -find some joy and hold on to it...

Describing the world is not either-or

 

Typically, "approved mind-sets" are limited and they consider a limited set of "facts."

Their othodoxys are entirely contained inside a "thought box." To really see a situation, it is necessary to climb out of that box, stand outside it in order evaluate the possibilities.

Our Systemic Blindness

Our systemic blindness

original post date 5/9/2011 to a Facebook profile that I deleted

Fascinated by the improbable potential of events as they unfold? Me too.

Complex system failure often involves multiple failures in multiple systems, followed by human error and denial, hysteria, indifference and angst. 

It’s odd - the curious way the status quo comports itself and how it is often not telling the truth, or has actually deceived itself. Think stock market crash, or Fukushima.

Often it's a harvest of weeds gone out of control, the unanticipated grown up through the cracks in everything. Yet things continue, helter skelter. Things change over time, how much they will change is open to speculation.

In general, everyone - individuals, countries and corporations - anticipate and prepare for only what is in their experience to imagine. 

(The faces -I made of Sculpy and later painted. They look a bit like they can't see out of their polymer eyes...)

Danger Will Robinson!

Remember that old show? Boy these are the times! Best to stay alert. Listen to what is being said. Keep your ears up like this fawn!

New ads on the dot gov site for that big ole white dwelling pump up the faithful for the end times. The ads talk of the “Final Battle” this midterm. Kind of echos Final Sol ution doesn't it? 

And how will he get rid of “communists” and "deepstate"rs “once and for all” ????  REMEMBER JAN 6, PEOPLE.…. 

The problem isn’t that the ads (paid for by tax payer dollars) break the LAW (they do).  The problem is that they foreshadow a purge! Don't put it past him!!! He’s telling us what he’s planning.  

 WAKE UP! 

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! 

Callous behavior towards customers & no common sense by Veterinarians in two states

It's bad enough that medical care in the US is so expensive that people regularly go bankrupt and lose their homes to predatory collection policies at for-profit hospitals. But now private equity firms have begun buying up vet practices - and why? They see easy profits - vet care costs have increased 60% since 2014 according to PBS (see link at the bottom) which beats the heck out of inflation.

This month I am aware of two - not one but TWO - people of limited means, living only on social security and insured by Medicaid being taken advantage of by veterinarians perhaps from avarice, or by rigid adherence to the idea of always doing all the procedures you can just in case. (An affliction human medicine also suffers from....) Some sensitivity to people's financial situation should be a factor as well. If they can't afford it, what alternative approach might be presented?

One person's 16 year old cat had stopped eating and cried constantly in pain. The vet did several thousand dollars of x-rays and blood tests ON AN ELDERLY CAT THAT WAS CLEARLY SUFFERING whose owner was on Medicaid. Instead of advising that a clearly suffering 16 year old cat that stops eating for three days, is telling you something about their will to live -- that the kindest thing is to do, is the really the hard thing -  to stay with her and hold her in your arms while she is medicated across the rainbow bridge, and have the last sight and sound she experiences be her beloved care-er, comforting her with pets and soft words.

And this literally poor pet owner leaves her crying kitty in the vets care,  goes home and her pet dies all alone at the vets.  The next day she is called in, not to pick up her kitty - but to pay a $2,175 bill. This fragile elderly person on Medicaid...  

NO COMMON SENSE. NONE.  

For the other person, the vet is still pushing dental cleaning, dental xrays, dental work, more blood work & kidney tests on a 16 year old cat who is already on palliative care and is comfortable - a cat that is eating, sleeping,  peeing and pooping, going out and laying in the sun on the porch, laying in her dads lap - still enjoying life. But of course who doesn't want to spend more time in the hospital being stabbed and probed, far away from your human, and the house and yard you have always known and loved - just in case they can find something more expensive to treat and bill your income poor human being for??  NO COMMON SENSE.  While she is enjoying her life -- LET HER LIVE IT. 

Allegedly it's all the interests of your pet. But wouldn't you know - many local vet practices have been bought up by giant corporations whose policies and procedures are not to do the kindest thing in the end - but to make you pay them every last cent they can possibly bill you for....

PBS on private equity buying vet practices

A country in free fall

"We are in free fall off a cliff here. I don't know where we land......The kind of authority that this administration has claimed for itself and exercised -- over Congress, the Supreme Court, the States, the American People, citizens, immigrants, and aliens alike -- is without precedent in American History - the end."

 -- American Political Historian/author Jill Lepore

Preferences of my 7th decade

 - a response poem to Patricia Smiths poem "Medusa" 

Too Much Drama, 

all those hormones

the burning and bravado

followed by anxiety and self-doubt.

I don't miss them,

not even a little

The old gods have feet of clay

and petty, vengeful hearts.

Explosions of thunder,

stabs of lightning

seem relaxing by comparison.

I'd take a solitary sunrise

seen through thistle and milkweed in the meadow

or a humming bird busy in the red bee balm

a wood dove on the roof-line....

 -- Mad Mar Walker, (Mistryel)  July 5, 2026 at a "Sunday Writes" session led by Faith Vicinanza at VSG Gallery.

I also have an old Medusa poem:

 Love and Mirrors 

 When courting Medusa, don't call her by that name. Let her have her delusions as she allows you yours.

Let her have her memories of a time when soft hair cascaded down her back and men reached to touch her cheek.

When you come to take her, lose the mirrored glasses, close your eyes tightly lest she see the snakes reflected, transmogrify to marble, cold statuary in your garden of love.

And who would be Medusa then? Or was it you all along?

-- Mar Mar Mistryel Walker (p22 - from  my first poetry chapbook Inverse Origami - the art of unfolding (Puzzled Dragon Press, 1998)

Nachos for breakfast & so lucky to have them

This morning I got up shortly after 5, was up, dressed, caffeinated and out for a walk by 5:30 am. The air was breezy and comfortable -65 degrees out - a balmy day in a heat wave. I walked for a full hour - more than usual and came home hungry.

Poking around in my kitchen looking for some breakfast - I came across Mexican corn chips and oddly they were calling me. I spread them on a plate and decorated them with southwest style diced tomatoes, a mixture of black beans, brown rice, barley, peppers, onions, spices and a sprinkle of pepper jack cheese. 

I slid them into the microwave with anticipation and was not disappointed....

So yes, (maybe for the only time in my life), I had Nachos for breakfast. Lucky I am to have a meal at all, a natural place to walk and a present peace however long it lasts. So much of the world is in rubble, in danger, cold or hot and hungry and thirsty, worried, fearful.   

I'm not powerful or influential. I'm not even particularly friendly or social. not a person who is necessarily agreeable. There are people who would say I'm a total shithead And nobody is reading this for sure. 

I can't do much, but stay informed, vote, donate to aid orgs, help when I'm able. The news, both local and global breaks my heart. 

Age-related Downsizing - Relief!

Before I moved (back in February,)  I lived in a 75 year old 4 bedroom house whose systems were aging poorly. I didn't choose it, I didn't buy it. I'd inherited it. 

I deeply appreciate my good fortune. That said, I've come to realize how much of my life energy was consumed by memories of the past, sorting the piles of  memorabilia inside, by worry about what to junk, what to keep or give away, what problem to fix, when to fix, the order of fixes, prequals to each fix, and researching contractors and their proposals. It was endless and I was out of my depth as a elderly female never involved with the building trades. As just one person taking up so much space I didn't need - well that bothered me quite a bit also....

I admit I enjoyed the front yard: having coffee on the bench in front of a dwarf lilac I had planted for my Mom. I even enjoyed mowing, snow shoveling, shrub trimming in the front yard - up to a point.  But trying to contain poison ivy, invasive weeds, an out-of-control hedge, a half dead blackberry patch and an overgrown uneven backyard became too much - tics, thorns, yellow jackets, large fallen branches, etc...  

Combine those stressors with the increasing traffic in Danbury! There used to be shortcuts I knew to avoid  jams. But there has been so much construction - so many new apartment complexes in all those formerly under-built areas -  even my back roads were crammed with traffic most of the day.  And My location was at the top of a steep circle without sidewalks or shoulders - not a safe walking spot especially in winter. My habit had been driving somewhere else to walk.  But now the traffic - and crazy stressed drivers - ah well.

After 11 years of fence sitting about leaving, my move was sudden. On New Years Day I had no inkling - it wasn't on the agenda.  By last week of January I'd made an offer and was packing like mad. By February's end I'd secured a new home.  I moved into a 1 bedroom condo in a 55+ complex with various places to walk to without driving and a little garden area right out of my door, a landscaping crew and enough units that local contractors consider it a "market" and are familiar with the units and the rules.  

The house went to flippers, who gave me a detailed repair plan, and got a bargain for their trouble.   

No regrets. Just immense relief and time to think about other things.

 

Time Rolls, yes it does, no one stands against it

You’ve got one life - do what you can while you can! Friendships, institutions, traditions you rely on appear then vanish! Disasters happen! Defend yourself as best you can!

Life is messy and difficult, so beautiful and brief.  Be alive until you aren’t- don’t give up contributing to the human story —even if nobody seems to hear, offer up your heart!

The backhanded non-apology....

 Got creeped out recently on the phone when a computer voice interrupted  - - "This call is being recorded!"  I said what the heck is that? And it suddenly said it again. I insisted the caller turn it off and said little after that. As always when I don't know how to react -- I don't. 

The next morning I woke up already a bit freaked out thinking about it. This person I was talking with posts nearly everything she does on Facebook - lots of selfies with groups of people she knows and places she's gone. Has to always have a social plan to go somewhere or be with someone. Hates to be alone. Also talks endlessly about what this or that person said to her - no matter if the conversation was yesterday or 60 years ago.... 

When I texted her saying to record someone secretly is really a betrayal of trust (also illegal which is why the app alerts people!)  Rather than apologize, she turned it right back on me - saying the presumption and assumption of malice in my reply was shocking and calling her mean was hurtful. 

But I never called her mean. I had asked what she planned to do with the recordings -post them to Facebook? She's pushy rather than mean, kind of bullying the reluctant into doing what she wants, or repeatedly asking very pointed questions for personal info which I had always found troubling.  Being more or less easy going I'd  awkwardly blurt out the answer and be filled with regret afterward. 

But recording me was a bridge too far. Way too far. And apparently there were two recordings - which she stated and claimed to have deleted, saying they were "gibberish" anyway. So she reviewed them before deleting. To see if they were useful? To see how the app did at recording? 

No regret was expressed. "I'm sorry you feel betrayed," she said. Not sorry about what she did, just sorry I found out and felt betrayed....

OMG I've moved.... I'll never find anything again

 Oh yes, I have pulled up stakes and moved, boxes and boxes I thought I'd never be done but finally after endless trips, I moved the last box. I'm still exhausted. No words of wisdom here. Just plunge in and do it!

That said - I'll still be unboxing sorting and tossing in September.