The High Hill of Age....& Peace

The High Hill of Old Age

Black Elk: (1863–1950); medicine man, Oglala Lakota

"I did not know then how much was ended. 

When I look back now from this high hill of my old age,

 I can still see the butchered women and children lying heaped and scattered all along the crooked gulch as plain as when I saw them with eyes young. 

And I can see that something else died there in the bloody mud, and was buried in the blizzard. 

A people's dream died there.

 It was a beautiful dream ... the nation's hope is broken and scattered. 

There is no center any longer, and the sacred tree is dead."

Thank you for your visit,

Riverwatch

Drink Coffee

pinterest.com

Drink coffee.

Do stupid things faster and with more energy.

Sign posted in a shop:

Unattended children will be given Expresso
 and a free 5 Hour Energy (Berry flavored, of course).

But then again, coffee may be more than a boost.

According to researchers at the University of Scranton, coffee is the number one source of antioxidants in the U.S.

I say, OF COURSE!   A million-trillion people drink coffee and only a few of us take our Vitamin C and Vitamin D and eat broccoli and grapefruit and blueberries and strawberries.  After all, a cup of joe is cheaper, easier, and warmer.  

Coffee wins!  Number one source of antioxidants.

Like Success

Here are some other health benefits of coffee:

coffee may protect against type 2 diabetes   (unless consumed with donuts)

coffee may lower the risk of liver cancer by as much as 50 %  (unless consumed with alcohol)

coffee may lower the risk of liver disease  (unless consumed with donuts and alcohol)

coffee may decrease risk of Parkinson's disease

coffee may or may not be good for your heart

InColors.club

Ahh....research. 

Have a good day drinking your coffee.

Thanks for dropping by and thanks for the cup of coffee,

Riverwatch

stitch.net

Prejudice and Diversity

 Here is the sad thing:



"A larger acquaintance with mankind extended their knowledge without correcting their prejudices..."

                                           by Edward Gibbon in The Decline and Fall of Rome      page 386

*

So, diversity is the rule of the day where I am visiting.
It begins with him being Presbyterian in a loose kind of way, and her being Jewish, more or less.

Children drinking briefly from every and any great or small fountain of knowledge they can find.
Eric Gaillard/Reuters

  It continues with his being a playwright and all the theater crowd with its diversity and her being a professor of government and politics with a focus on minorities and all those unending issues.  Building bridges to and from the near-by  Northwest Detention Center housing a thousand undocumented people.

Me, deep in thought: How can you have a thousand books on emigration/immigration gracing your myriad bookshelves and miss having "The Decline and Fall of Rome"?
I keep my thoughts to myself, but loud they are!

It continues with me sporting my Cross and trying to hide that I cut my conspiracy theory teeth on Cleon Skousen and Gary Kah.
Shh.  Don't even mention their names!

Having read Skousen is certainly part of my contaminated past.  Oh, well.
We do have to acknowledge Mormonism since there are many ex-Mormons lounging about here with stories to tell.  
Yes, a friend says, my Mormon brother married a Muslim from Bangladesh.  All the parents were freaking.  
I  just couldn't help but wonder:  man or woman?  So I asked, "How did your parents feel about the hijab?"
"Oh.  She wasn't wearing one except for the ceremony."
Ahh.  Woman.

It continues with "Intelligence Squared" recorded debates:   Islam, a Religion of Peace or Not?
Not.  Gyration, gyration.  The debate verdict is WRONG.   It is so a religion of peace!   Damn!

Still and all, I walk in peace in the misty Pacific Northwest, cooled off from the sand dunes from which I come.
Blood pressure down to normal, untreated.
Face happy and relaxed.


It occurs to me that the more diversity there is, the easier it is to transcend it.
If there is only a little diversity, one can get tangled up in the fatigue of diversity.
But if diversity is thick enough to be woven with all different weaves, it becomes  tight enough to create a wind to carry you aloft.

Do you suppose that is a path to peace on earth?  So much diversity woven tightly together creating  that nice little breeze to carry each person aloft?

prodrinkingfountains.com

The trick to being in a sea of diversity is to skim buoyantly, reacting to nothing.whlcommunity.com

Nothing except the Seahawks!   It is Seahawks Day in the misty rain.
We all agree.
Seahawks rule! Even when they lose....again!



Still and all, the sand dunes.
Ahh.  The sand dunes.



Thanks for the wave,
Riverwatch

"1984" Revisited

This book, "1984" was written in 1961 and I tried to read it in college later, and dismissed it as garbage back then.

So.  Let's read it truly, Riverwatch.  You are old.  How do you think about "1984" now, since Big Brother really is watching!
Read this book!

1.  Plot:  shallow with Proles irrationally plotted in.
2.  Characters poorly developed (two dimensional).
3.  Plot exist only as a vehicle to carry agenda, world view and political pseudo-intellectualism.
4.  Lacks vision, true vision.  Three Superpowers, no new weapons, no internet.  GIVE ME A BREAK.
5.  It is a Godless book.  It makes man the measure of all things.
6.  Terror is the only fully detailed aspect.  Even the political ideas are far underdeveloped compared to terror detail.
7.  It supposedly arises out of mans' hopelessness.    Say what??
8.  It is about power, ie, evil.  Feast your mind on crap.
9.  It takes no account of other worlds, other dimensions, or the fact that the human mind is lighted from a source beyond our understanding.  
saleoilpaintings.com

10.  Did I mention I think Orwell sucks as an author and lacks understanding of reality and the complexity and hope of human beings?


Time is running out.  Yet here I am, wasting time, I guess.
But I appreciate your visit and hope you don't feel about "I've Landed" (and me) like I feel about "1984" and Orwell.
It was a waste of my time!
No, not totally because I went looking for images and I found this lovely picture.
Even trolling a wasteland can bring surprising moments of joy.

Riverwatch

Mother Nature, Father Moon

All my life

 nature has been soothing 

     and kind

           and alive 

               and interactive. 

 Just like today. I am less alone because there are clouds and winds.

magic4walls.com

Thank you for your visit, 

Riverwatch

First Class and Free

Free at last. Free at last.

So, I received an excited call from my daughter who lives in SLC, Utah.

She has breaking news.

About the Mormons.

She lives surrounded by Mormons, immersed in a Mormon culture that is fostered onto the society at large.

Make no mistake. She has benefited from the caring of Mormon/LDS neighbors.

She has also endured having her personal boundaries crossed again and again by the "well meaning” Mormons/LDS.

She has been assigned Mormon visiting teachers when she is Presbyterian and she was too kind to disallow the visits and shelved her own feelings in order to protect "neighborhood harmony",

She has listened patiently to her next door neighbor bear her Mormon testimony multiple times when the neighbor knows my daughter is obviously very active in the Presbyterian Church,

She saw her hubby answer the door to an irate Mormon/LDS neighbor who screamed righteous indignation at her husband's “car hobby” in their back yard,

endured the humiliation of that same Mormon neighbor building a 10 foot solid fence clear to the street(it obviously was not just about their back yard) making a huge public statement about the undesirability of “his next door neighbors”.

She has had her children proselyted (unsuccessfully) and also excluded and also demeaned, and blamed unjustly for little things going wrong in the neighborhood.

At first, she (having been raised Mormon/LDS) didn't believe what was happening after she abandoned the Mormon faith and began attending a Presbyterian Church. Surely this treatment by Mormons is a fluke.

“I had heard these kinds of tales , Mom , but I never believed it until I saw it happen to me and my family. At first I blamed my kids and thought they should try harder. But when you see adults “dismiss” your children as contaminants, you finally see the picture.”

The exciting news:

This past week her “best, kindest most helpful” Mormon neighbor visited, drinking his coffee. Such a new behavior!

He, a first class citizen (never speaks ill of anybody), is old, as is his wife, but such good Mormons and my daughter had never seen him with a coffee cup before.
Fifteen years of visits and nary a drop of coffee.

“My goodness, Bill. What's with the coffee??!! I've never seen you drink coffee. Are Mormons allowed to drink coffee these days?!”

Bill smiled. “My wife and I haven't been in that brick building for months ! I did my 50 years. We are so done with that church and now we are so happy. We LOVE Sundays. And our hot coffee! Last Sunday we were hiking the Tetons and we looked at each other at the same moment and laughed, knowing what we were missing.”

Well, you are not surprised if the young take a hiatus from church when they leave home.

But old people bailing out of a church? 
It is picking up speed in Utah.



 I appreciate your kind visit,
                    Riverwatch

Peace Accord

Old age is a time of accommodation.  (And we aren't talking elder housing here!)

Accommodation is a settlement, 
an  agreement, 
an accord.
                            

 It is an adjustment.  We reconcile ourselves to a changing reality.

Old age calls for accommodation.  

It is what it is.                                                          

It was what it was.

We are kind of comfortable with that when we get old.  
We have learned to cope.

On the other hand, as attested to by some other bloggers, new things are cropping up for us as old people that we are having to .......accommodate:  

                         How people view us.  

                              How we view outselves!  

                                   How "dismissed" we are since our time is "running out".  

                                         Our waning finances.  

                                    Our waning health. 

                              Our dying friends. 

   

Accommodation, accommodation, accommodation!
Compromise, compromise, compromise.

It is often right to accommodate and compromise.  
Especially if married!

Especially if we want friends!

But peace through accommodation and compromise can be an uncomfortable peace.  

If our conscience is pricked by a lie we are living or simply "living on top of",  we have chosen an uncomfortable peace.

Sometimes we have to throw out an uncomfortable peace and go for "real".  
Not an uncomfortable social peace, but "real"  with real peace within.

I am who I am.

What do we have to lose 
that isn't already leaking away 
by being real?

.  

Old age can be a nice time of freedom to be the real you, the real me!  

Ahh, the courage of the aged.

This kind of freedom is one of those good things usually appearing only after years of experience.  

So glad you are hanging around for the blessings!





Nice seeing you,
and I hope you return.
Riverwatch