Healing Peace

Do you like to pray?

I do.  I find prayer to be the most powerful positive thinking avenue.
Of course we all have read the various news and research on the power of positive thinking.

It is Lent for many Chrisitan people now.  I have never really understood Lent, but hey, I do love this beautiful prayer that came with our recent service.   It occurred to me that you might like it also.


It is directed to Christ.

For your spiritual church around the world          
                          we ask new life.
For all who carry out ministries in your church    
                         we ask grace and wisdom.
For people who have accepted spiritual disciplines
                         we ask inspired discipleship.
For Christians of every land
                        we ask new unity in your name.
For Jews and Muslims and people of other faiths
                        we ask your divine blessing.
For those who cannot believe
                        we ask your faithful love.
For governors and rulers in every land
                        we ask your guidance.
For people who suffer and sorrow
                         we ask your healing peace.

Thanks for your positive thoughts, (prayers or otherwise)

and your visit to my blog.

Riverwatch 

Happy Valentine's Day

Leonard

The people who raised me were cynics about love.  True cynics.
My mother believed love was possible but perishes.
My dad did not believe there was such a thing as love, and that all love is faked.
These two people were true cynics and their favorite rant was young women who marry old men!!  We all know what that is about!!
An old besotted stupid man and a gold digging girl.
Pathetic.  Trashy.  Criminal, even!

You can see how I became an "early-on cynic".

Then I met Leonard.

I met Leonard when I was only 25 and he was 94.  I do not know exactly when I fell in love with him but it was quite soon.  Perhaps it was after a particularly crushing fight with my husband.  No, I was not a physically abused wife.  And for the record, the slinging items thrown at my husband all missed. Men are such good duckers!  It is built right into their DNA.

Still and all it was a loveless marriage and I was on a wasteland at age 25.

I always thought of Leonard as old, of course.
But never, no never, not ever did I see Leonard as a father figure or a grandfather figure.
Leonard was always a man to me, a fine fine man.  A man with a tucked in shirt.
Leonard was the man I wished to be married to.  To sleep with.  To talk with.  To run away with.
Trapped by marriage, two small children, a graceless religion......and my youth.....I was not a candidate for anything...except true love.

True love knows not boundaries, needs not bridges, seeks not the approval of society.

I was in love with a man who honored me as no man had ever honored me.

I was in love with a man whose face so lighted at the sight of me that every crumbled thing inside me went back together for a bit.

I was in love with a man who desired me, who appreciated me, who asked nothing from me but love.

Leonard had accomplished great things in his life, with the help of his wife, God rest her soul, and Leonard was just living now.
Great tasks done.
Great loves laid to rest.
Time to smell the roses.
We spent great time together, doing nothing, building nothing, dreaming nothing, hoping for nothing.
Living totally in the present, we spent time "being", being together.

It was the best of times.

It was the era of mini skirts, and I wore mini skirts.  Being a tiny bit modest, I always wore silk stockings or tights with my short skirts.
Life is so much more enjoyable in skirts of such ilk!
Leonard liked my mini skirts.  One spring day sitting together on a bench in a park, he smiled down at my happy upturned face and put his hand on my silk stockinged thigh.  "For a fat girl", he beamed, "you sure have class."
There has never been a compliment since which could dislodge Leonard's compliment from top place on my carefully kept stash of  compliments-I-have-received.

I never thought he would die.

Two years into our strange courtship, he died.  Quietly.  Suddenly.

I cried more for Leonard than I have ever cried for anybody.
It was the worst of times.

He was gone.

A light that had illuminated living for me had disappeared.

He was gone.

Worse than that, he was beyond my world even if he had not died.
We were separated by a gulf where bridges did not exist and could only be built on fairy wings,  and I cried for tragic love haunting our world throughout time immemorial, the haunting of "you cannot really have, you cannot really possess".

He was gone.

And I was not with him when he died.  I cried about death.  I cried about aging.  I cried about being powerless against the tide of life.  I cried about life.
He was gone......and who in my world could understand my tears, my tragic loss?
Society forbade young mothers being stupid and irresponsible.
I grieved and grieved and grieved.
Alone.

Having been in love with Leonard and known deep desire for somebody far outside the "norm", I am not a cynic about love.

Love is strange and attractions between people are inexplicably unexplainable.

True love crosses all kinds of boundaries and true love never dies.




"Neither be cynical about love, for in the face of all aridity and disenchantment, it is as perennial as the grass."  
Desiderata

"Hear this now.  Death cannot stop true love".
Wesley from Princess Bride


Throughout my journey since knowing Leonard, I can always bring myself up from the depths of discouragement by looking into a mirror and reminding myself that for a fat girl, I sure do have class!  And isn't that all that matters?

the edges of sleep

Moving Toward or Away From Sleep

I don't know about you, but I find myself sometimes a little leery of the "falling asleep" time that occurs daily ....or should I say nightly....in my life.  
It is a time of "losing control", and being a control freak, those times of losing control are a tad scarey.  

Plus, some of my most interesting times of my life have been spent in that twilight land of the edge of sleep.

If I am extra extra tired, or fatigue has overtaken me, then I don't care if I die in the process of falling asleep!

Clunk, and I am out.  
Who cares what's flitting through my mind or about my room!  
Die or sleep!  What matters it?!

But other than those times, I have a certain little nagging worry about FALLING asleep. 

What might happen?

Control freak.

The borderline of sleep, the half-dream state, is a fetching lot of data-static for a human being! 

We all know there are Stages of Sleep, but this is not about Sleep's Stages.

This post is about the edges of sleep. 

Am I half awake or half asleep?

Whatever, it is the threshold consciousness,  a time of "between",  a transition stage.

Strange things happen. 

Drowsy.......Moving Toward Fragmentary Dreams but not there yet.

Sensory Phenomena  There can be sensory phenomena.

Sights can appear:  
Random speckles, lines or geometrical pattern, monochromatic or richly colored, still or moving , flat or three-dimensional.

Usually fleeting or rapidly changing.

Reappearance of the days "novel" experiences....the chess board, the cardiac monitor, the curtains around a hospital bed, the chamber ring of a missile, the line of customers to be served, a dollar bill floating in the wind, a headless chicken (Yikes!  Where did that come from!!!), new shoes, old shoes.  Usually still shots, but can be moving. 

New employees working stressful and demanding jobs often report doing work-related tasks in this period before sleep

Touch can appear:

The touch of rocks can be felt while falling asleep after mountain climbing. 

Rough seas, or even waves you have been swimming through shortly before going to bed, can touch you as you drift to sleep.

People who have spent the day skiing may continue to "feel snow" under their feet, also people who have spent considerable time jumping on a trampoline will find that they can feel the up-and-down motion before they go to sleep. 

A person far away you care about reaches out and you feel the touch.
The motion of the long long airplane ride earlier in the day is felt. You are still flying.

Sounds can appear:

Sounds vary in intensity from faint impressions to loud noises, such as crashes and bangs (the exploding head syndrome). 

People may imagine their own name called or a doorbell ringing. 

Snatches of imagined speech are common. While typically fragmented, these speech events can occasionally strike the individual as apt comments on their thoughts at the time. They may contain word-play, neologisms and made-up names. 

Speech may manifest as the subject's own "inner voice", or as the voices of others: familiar people or strangers. 

More rarely poety or music is heard.  I can tell you from personal experience I once woke up with music blasting in my head and I never, no never, want that to happen again!

Other sensations can appear:

Smells, tastes, may appear.

A flash of light may happen in response to a real sound.

We can have the terrifying sensation of falling.  

We may feel we are floating.  There can be perceived "out of body" experiences.

We might feel numb or perceive our body to be larger or smaller than it is in reality.

Mental activity and emotion phenomena can occur:

 On the edge of sleep, thought processes tend to differ radically  from those of ordinary wakefulness.  
There may be more openness, sensitivity, empathy and diffused-absorbed attention.

It is a time of heightened suggestibility, illogic and a fluid association of ideas.

It is a very vulnerable time for a human being........mind ON, control OFF.

EEG readdings show elevated responsiveness to sound around the onset of sleep

Repression and censorship are gone. If we babble, we babble our secrets.

Learning can occur:

At the edges of sleep, strange things can happen.

Creativity is enhanced. 

Problems "click through" and solve themselves. 

Understanding arrives .

This is the time of the phenomena of Visions, Prophecies, Premonitions and Apparitions.

This is the time of inspiration (artistic or divine depending on your beliefs and those of your culture).

This is a time when you can "wake yourself back up" and head to the drawing board or a paper tablet and scribble down the  precious fruits out of your edge of sleep.

My world view and my religious faith allow me to wonder in special ways about my early ancestors.  I see them, sitting under the shade trees, starting to fall asleep and having the Force of the Universe visit and transform their very brains and brain processes. Wakening up to a new way of looking at things around them.  Waking up.

Some super intelligent man once told me, "I like to be in your presence because I become fully awake around you and that is a rare thing."

I take that as one of the best compliments I have ever received (though I'd rather have had him think I was cute).  Not the best compliment, but one of the best.  

His words caused me to think about how parts of my brain are not always awake even when I am conscious and awake.  What does that mean?  
His words caused me to look around with increased consciousness about who in my society causes my brain to become more fully awake. And why does that happen?

Increasing consciousness.  
Important.  
Perhaps the foundation for increasing consciousness occurs on the edges of sleep.

Maybe that is why old age is important.  Even as we are losing brain cells, we are becoming more and more fully awake, when we're not nodding off or napping. 

Perhaps because we have increased edges of sleep time??  

I sure feel like my sleep has changed, 
allowing more edges of sleep 
and less sleep in all it's stages. 

Thank you for your visit.
Riverwatch

Happy New Year to the Family National Guard

A Special Happy New Year to the Family National Guard

Since 1980, a growing share of unmarried adults have been living in their parents’ homes according to census data.

“Older parents are playing a much greater role than was the case a few decades ago,” said Mr. Cherlin, who calls grandparents a “family national guard.”

“In recent years, more grandparents have been called up for active duty.
They are glad to help, but some are looking forward to the day when they can go back into the reserves.”  

Well, the middle east wars have taught us what being in the "reserves" means!!

Good luck, Grandpa and Grandma.  You may have more than one tour of duty!

Supporting adult children can mean physical, emotional, and financial strains, especially for older Americans who’ve stepped in and taken over parental duties for an absentee adult.

Being old does not mean being unimportant.  Even if we are poor as we age, we are usually giving of ourselves to those around us until it's over.
And it ain't over yet, baby!

No wonder as a critical care nurse I saw so many teenagers and young adults sobbing over their dying grandparents.  I was so impressed that the dying of the aged could be so traumatic to the young.

                                       100things.com.au
It ain't over yet, baby!

We, the aged, are important.

radio.cz

So take care of yourself!

Some of this post, but not all, came from the following:
http://blogs.wsj.com/economics/2013/11/18/parents-serving-as-emergency-support-for-adult-kids/

 Thanks for stopping by and sharing NY's Eve with me,
Happy New Year, 
Riverwatch

Pioneering for our telomeres (the stringy thingies)

The Alliance for Aging Research  has up-to-date articles on research on aging that are very interesting.

http://www.agingresearch.org/section/newsletter/archive/fall13/glance/

I was especially interested in the research showing calorie restriction lengthens life.

Once upon a time, my ancestors ate to live.  Somehow we have jumped the track and we find food to BE the social playground.  I think we better go out to the real playground more often and get back on track!!

I feel a little hypocritical saying that, because I am a great great great fan of "Pioneer Woman".  I love to watch the food she cooks up for the kids, hubby and ranch hands!  As soon as her program is over, I turn off the TV and head to the kitchen to see if I can duplicate the feast!

Like the doctor said, "You have to stop having all those intimate dinners for 4, unless you invite 3 other people."

Hope you like the research that says it's possible to get healthier and live longer.....that your telomeres can actually grow if you restrict calories!
That is stunning news about our DNA stringy thingies!


Riverwatch

Conscious Aging

step into the void around us

volunteering
     care taking
          mentoring
               creating
                    teaching
                         activism
                              praying
                                   socially conscious business activity
                                        become a mystic


unwrap and offer our gifts


this is heaven on earth  ....play, create, keep the home fire burning

the Great Work lies before us......aging.......spiritual growth



"pray and faint not"



Thanks for the visit,
Riverwatch

Life

You know how it is sometimes when you are old. You look around, especially at other old people, and you begin to wonder about life. Good grief.

Your brain is so tender you cannot even formulate the question that might send you screaming into the night.

And so I pray.

In such a strange mood, I went out into the crowd again to see what I would see.

Here is what I saw:

Babies in their mother's arms, screaming for things they could not have.

Mothers herding or carrying children. Mothers who DID NOT LOOK HAPPY!

Young men gazing off into nothingness, stress wrinkles appearing right before your eyes, walking alongside little families. Trailing alongside little families. Sometimes a toddler in arms, held skewampus and sort of like an afterthought.

Old people shuffling and huffing and fighting gravity.

More old people shuffling and huffing and fighting gravity.

Blowing winds.

Clouds in our no-longer-normal sky.

Birds, desperate for crumbs.

I scurried back to my dwelling.

Sad.

Wondering.

Afraid of the answer.

And so I prayed.

Night fell, covering my dwelling and sad sleep.

I awakened from a WOW dream of peace, as though a book were being written for me.

Scrolling down like scanning news on a computer.

Every serious writer knows this kind of advancing clarity, a gift.

To serve God.

To live.

To procreate.

To love.

To cling to life. To make the effort.

To fulfill thy days.

To love and pray for others.

…...the Fabric of Life.

No longer sad,

thanks for dropping in,

Riverwatch

What's a Good Scare Worth?

What's a Good Scare Worth?

Hi.  Welcome to my post on behind-the-scenes at a state of the art - highly rated acute care hospital that I am familiar with.

Just an ordinary, busy day in cooker-care-medicine down in the Imaging Department.  Highly qualified professionals on duty.

A young man (between 30 and 50 yrs old) laying there on the hard cold slab we call a "table", waiting on the big exam.
Actually, it wasn't all that big of an exam.   Inject a little dye into his vein (an IV is already going to "establish" an open access to his vein) and then snap the images and we are "good to go"!
The nice man on the table is what we call a patient.  That does not necessarily mean he is patient, but this man is patient and agreeable.  He has signed all the forms allowing the professional team to work on him.  He is trusting and  "good to go." 

Tech has laid out all needed supplies for the injection on the near-by small scootable table, and she is exceptionally happy because it is the END of her shift and another tech is taking over.  She is "good to go", right in the middle of the exam.

If nobody else has told you, let me apprise you:  CHANGE OF SHIFT IN AN ACUTE CARE HOSPITAL IS THE MOST DANGEROUS TIME IMAGINABLE FOR THE PATIENT.
I don't care what they say, at change of shift you, the person, are momentarily forgotten, maybe even abandoned, while the oncoming shift gets to hear about you, your condition or disease, and your treatment plan.  And we do like to update ourselves on our own lives and challenges ......so you may hear laughter, expletives, exclamatory noises and all sorts of talk about the upcoming weekend, even the latest sports scores. (Whispering means they are talking about hospital administration, or who's sleeping with who, or maybe they are whispering about your condition.)  Hospital administration tries hard to get professionals to have no personal life, but no matter how hard they try they cannot get human nature stamped out completely.
Not to worry.....the robots are coming, are even edging in at present!

But this day there are no robots.  Human nature is in full cry.

The word is passed that "he" is ready for his injection, and the first tech leaves.  The second tech takes over, surveys the supplies on the scootable table and sees that the syringe is "good to go".......he injects the contents which is NOT the clear fluid dye, but is, instead, 50 ml of air waiting to be plunged  into the vial of dye so the 50ml of dye can be easily drawn up into the syringe & then injected into the patient!!!

YIKES  !!

The patient immediately "codes" (dies).  A big bolus of air when it hits the heart is lethal since it contracts and expands with the beating of the heart and disallows room for blood to enter the chamber of the heart.
That air has found a home and it is going nowhere.  Contract....expand....contract...expand...
The patient has died clinically....not biologically....and the highly qualified team discern the problem immediately and spring into action.

Ordinary CPR won't do it.  This big bubble of air in the patients heart can be dealt with only in a hyperbaric chamber (such as those used to treat the deep sea bends).

Miracle of miracles the hospital has a brand new hyperbaric chamber......and the race to save the patient is on.

He is not only saved, he is saved "intact".....no damage whatsoever.

He wakes up in a different area of the hospital and has no clue where he has been.......but fear sets in.

Good to go, he leaves the hospital on schedule, a well man.......but he decides to sue the hospital for his unexpected ordeal.

**

I was with a risk management group listening to the pleas of the competent team to NOT let this patient win big bucks.  Come on!  They SAVED him!  Where is his gratitude?  He was not damaged and aren't you supposed to not be able to sue unless you are damaged?

I shall never forget our own corporate lawyer speaking to us as  a group.
"What's a good scare worth?
In terms of money.......what could we pay you to lay on that table and get a 50ml bolus of air intravenously?"

We were all silent.  No response.  No matter how badly we wanted that second home on the mountain. or a year off to tour Europe, or enough money to make our kids suck up to us, we were all smart enough to know to avoid flatlining (even temporarily ) on the way to a rich life.

Naturally the patient won.
He didn't even have to go to trial.
No hospital wants bad press and there was no way to make this one look good or even ok.
These situations are worked out behind closed doors, away from the consternation babble of competent team members who did a magnificent job saving a patient.


But some patients really are grateful.  A doc once told me that he found his most grateful patients were the ones he rescued from his own mistakes.

Change of shift time in a hospital puts a bit of fear into all of us health care professionals whether we are leaving our shift or arriving for our shift.  Our nighttime nightmares are often studded with "what did I forget?" or "the next shift isn't coming and I have to stay!"
We health care professionals really are great.  We care.  We dream about you.  We have nightmares about our responsibilities to you.

Yet Hillary Clinton said RNs are the biggest waste of money in health care!
Do you suppose she would value my opinion on Bengazi?

It is true it would be nice if no mistakes were ever made, but my bias is I want a team that is highly competent and motivated to rescue me from their own mistakes.

And my advice to all is that should you ever survive a Good Scare in the hospital, get a Good Lawyer.

A good scare is worth a lot!







Thanks for your visit,
Riverwatch, RN

"Help Me Find God! I Have The Aging Crazies."

Abou Ben Adhem

By Leigh Hunt

Abou Ben Adhem (may his tribe increase!)

Awoke one night from a deep dream of peace,

And saw, within the moonlight in his room,

Making it rich, and like a lily in bloom,

An angel writing in a book of gold:—

Exceeding peace had made Ben Adhem bold,

And to the presence in the room he said,

"What writest thou?"—The vision raised its head,

And with a look made of all sweet accord,

Answered, "The names of those who love the Lord."

"And is mine one?" said Abou. "Nay, not so,"

Replied the angel. Abou spoke more low,

But cheerly still; and said, "I pray thee, then,

Write me as one that loves his fellow men."

The angel wrote, and vanished. The next night

It came again with a great wakening light,

And showed the names whom love of God had blest,

And lo! Ben Adhem's name led all the rest.

Riverwatch

Camouflage

I admit it.  I am unhappy with my hair.

OK.  I admit it.  I am grateful I even have hair.

Has your luxurious hair changed over time?

At least I had luxurious hair when I was young.

I once worked with an unusual looking, but attractive, youngish woman who had been born without eyebrows or eyelashes.
It took newcomers who came into the work arena months to figure out her "problem".  It was funny, even to her, to watch people try to figure out "what  was strange about her".
See, she painted her lips bright, bright red.
I mean BRIGHT red!

You knew at a glance that there was "something about Ginger".....
but nobody that I knew of figured it out on their own.
Ginger always had to be the one to break the secret.
"I have no eyebrows or eyelashes!" she would eventually confess so the puzzled stare could finally stop.

Camouflage.  We all need a bit of it somewhere sometime.

Sometimes camouflage is just a trick to draw attention elsewhere.

Ginger didn't paint eyebrows on her face.

 She painted red on her lips.



Frankly my big hope is that somebody designs a personal cloaking device.

Too heck with camouflage!
Too  heck with artistic trick-of-the eye manuevers.
I want, I need, a personal cloaking device.
I am getting the yen to be a kid again and slide down the sliding board....and to spy on some of my neighbors rather than talk with them.....
and to heist a few items from the local supermarket!  (stealing is more about anger than need, you know)

I'm thinking I have to put all these "new desires" on hold until personal cloaking devices come out.

I am thinking I would be happy with a personal cloaking device.
Free at last!  Free at last!  Thank God Almighty I am free at last!

Do you think your behavior would change if you had a personal cloaking device?

Would I even comb my hair?  Surely I would stop the dye job.  And what about my bangs?
I don't have one picture of me since I grew hair at 5 months old, without bangs!
Bangs look cute on a baby and on toddlers...even on a teenager, but I am beginning to believe I have that Mamie Eisenhower look that no doubt contributed to Ike's alleged inability to stay true.
Can you blame the man for not staying true to an old woman with bangs?
Recall, if you will, the luxurious hair of his driver, Kay.  No bangs for that fashion model!

I pulled my bangs off my forehead the other day, desparate for a break in how I look, and I can tell you there was NO IMPROVEMENT.

Bangs are my little attempt at a cloaking device.
And I am beginning to admire...barely.....those teenage girls and young women with globs of stringy hair covering one eye and half their face.  Cloaking.

I am telling you, design a personal cloaking device and it will make you rich beyond your wildest dreams.


Thanks for visiting my blog.
Riverwatch

Shocking

Re-reading Future Shock by Toffler, I know I made a mistake when I threw it in the trash as rubbish back in the early 70's.  It was all the rage back then, so I read it.                                                             I read it, laughed with derision and tossed it.

Let me tell you, I made a mistake.

That book was a winner.

I am now living in the world of shock that Toffler discribed, a world where change is so rapid I can scarce hang on.  The human body has only so much ability to respond to rapid changes, and when changes speed up, we begin to scramble.  If the speed continues or continues to build, we begin falling off the tracks.  Shock.

Toffler also described the internet long before it arrived for us........he described a new kind of human creature that he terms "modular man"......someone "plugged in" to many many other beings, but on a limited scope that allows us to interact (on a modular scale) to many many many other people.
Probably none would attend our weddings and funerals because we are not relating as whole persons, but rather as just pieces of ourselves.  Still and all, it is "connect".

I'm glad I found a copy to re-read.



Do you find our present is more wearing than our past?

Thanks for checking in....on a modular level,
Riverwatch

Stars in our Sky

For age is opportunity no less

Than youth itself, though in another dress,

And as the evening twilight fades away,

The sky is filled with stars invisible by day.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Hoping you get to watch the meteor shower tonight,

and have a star filled day,

Riverwatch

Funerals, Fly-bys and Fiasco's

Funerals, Fly-bys and Fiasco's

A decade or so ago, I became "unfulfilled" going out with a small group of my older-than-me-friends on lunch dates that turned into funeral chats.
I was trying to decide about retirement and they were planning their deaths!
This does not work for me! I thought.
Gotta hang with the less depressing people who are plotting retirement, not death.

I should not have worried about maybe hurting their feelings by opting out of lunch.
One by one they died, or faded away in some other fashion.
Not one of them remains on the scene.
I was hardest hit by Ellen's death.  She was the one I was closest to, and THERE WAS NO FUNERAL.
Ellen had said to us that she wasn't having a funeral....and I thought she was kidding!

Her death hit me hard, because.....there was not a way provided to grieve in community for her.

Oh, I grieved privately, but when I would talk with anybody about Ellen it was one on one and I had to initiate the conversation "out of the blue".  We never even went out to lunch together as friends to cry  in our soup that Ellen was gone.
One of the group dismissed my scattered wool gathering by saying, "Oh, Ellen was such a plaintive woman."
I puzzeled over the word plaintive for days, weeks, months....and years.  Damn it!  Give me a story about Ellen that goes with plaintive!  What does plaintive mean?

I almost bought a little doll that looked like Ellen to stand on my dresser to remind me of her and how important her friendship was to me.  I didn't buy the doll.  It was a money thing.  Is that sad or what that grieving has its monetary limits for some people!
I tenderly put "Ellen" back on the store shelf, saying a whispered choked up, heart felt good-bye to her.

Of course I do not blame Ellen for axeing her own funeral.  She was, after all, a plaintive woman.

I don't like funerals either.

How horrid that I am now thinking of my own future funeral.  And yours!

Mostly mine.

It's odd my thoughts have turned to a subject I  am not real interested in  since my funeral will not be for me.

It won't be for me.

It will be for those left behind.

And speaking of those left behind......  Janie just told me of a funeral she went to for someone on her husband's side of the family.
It was only the second funeral within that family group Janie has attended and apparently the first funeral fiasco had taught them nothing!

Janie said the entire family is unchurched, and completely incompetetent about the whole grieving and burying thing.

However, that family does have one pagan cult member (not that there's anything wrong with being a pagan)  who was interested in certain strange rituals....so that fueled a family fight at the cemetery.  Which struggle went well with the misting rain that was wrecking havoc with the Fed-Ex box of ashes flown in that very day from Oregon.
"My god, they are burying Grandma in a Fed-Ex Box!"
There was no one in charge, but several opinionated attendees.
Apparently the children who were present stood on lawn chairs, the better to see the cemetery drama.
The entire farewell took place under the weepy sky, no overhead shelter.

There was no pastor present to help unify the attendees who were "done with" each other for long-standing reasons.

Apparently the funeral itself was a reason to grieve.
Individuals left that funeral angry...jaded.....disappointed.....or relieved.......
but certainly not uplifted, nor strengthened individually or as a group.


Birth.  Marriage.  Death.  Life's great events.  Meant to be shared, both joy and grief, in community.

Is your community in place and working well for those you will leave behind?

I wonder, if we look down on a departure for us that has materialized into a fiasco, will we laugh or weep?
Either way I doubt any of us, having lived to be old, will be stunned by what we see at our departure gate.


Probably plaintively yours, (whatever that means)

Riverwatch

Is Time Speeding Up?

Hello,

Well, regardless of its title, this little short vid is not about How Long Can You Live.

It is about How Long Does It Feel Like You Are Living & Why.

Hope you like it....if you are not too rushed to view it.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6LyCC6jjcx8

Hoping you are having a fun day!  Thanks for dropping in.
Riverwatch

My Garden is a Zen Garden

Peace.
Tranquility.
The desert.

I love the desert for its tranquility.  Especially in the heat of the day, or even the cool of the night.  I was just out this morning before dawn and saw a lump on my sidewalk.   I flipped open my flashlight and the lump awakened to a mighty confused flight and hit my house wall.  A scrambling self-correction and the huge bird was off into the dark sky, tranquility restored here on the ground.

So it is with my garden.  It didn't start out to be a Zen garden, but it is nothing but!
Traces of hope can be felt gently escaping its desert environment.
Soil ammendment has been only mildly successful, allowing only the asparagus to soldier on in the heat.
All else is desert, level, tranquil, a retreat for lizards.  You know....the Zen thing.
Not even birds bother it.  Why should they?  They love the rook, another microclimate for life.

I love my Zen Garden.  I would rake it and take a picture of it for you, but why should I?  I just don't want you to see.  It's a Zen thing.
 I want your happiness, not your pity....so....no pictures.

Peace.
Tranquility.
Dehydration.
The desert.

It's a Zen thing.

Makes me sleepy just to think about it.
Sipping water,
Being glad you visited,

Riverwatch