tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-61684082024-03-06T21:06:53.331-08:00Adventures in MultiplicityWalt Whitman said "Do I contradict myself? Very well then I contradict myself, I am large, I contain multitudes." Among my multitudes are Buddhism, pacifism, polyamory, self-examination, libraries, and science. Perhaps my various adventures will be interesting to others.Heidihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01555381490834134232noreply@blogger.comBlogger530125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6168408.post-26209036792894401952013-01-28T13:54:00.000-08:002013-01-28T13:54:10.947-08:00Bodhisattva Quiz<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://resources.tsemtulku.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/3/files/buddhas-and-bodhisattvas/shakyamuni2008a.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="301" src="http://resources.tsemtulku.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/3/files/buddhas-and-bodhisattvas/shakyamuni2008a.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
A long time ago I created a quiz, Which Bodhisattva Are You?, on Facebook.<br />
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Recently, I was telling a new acquaintance about Bodhisattvas, and he asked, "Which one am I?" He was being funny, I responded seriously, which I often do.<br />
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So I dug out that quiz, found a place to put it online, and discovered I needed a few more questions for the quiz form.<br />
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So, here it is, <a href="http://www.gotoquiz.com/which_bodhisattva_are_you_1" target="_blank">my Bodhisattva Quiz</a>, with questions old and questions new.<br />
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<br />Heidihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01555381490834134232noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6168408.post-58584734100284960282012-12-24T00:49:00.000-08:002012-12-24T00:49:54.270-08:00Season's Greetings<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhIvvK8Xrk4yXr9Uj-onUFI04LE4MORaOVHLNDsg22Bu2vWuJ-LKIMdbwTS22ACfHXsDoRKsneashkScPBuE2t_Rv7NH0_mMBTZiaQFq6LHXVwd7d7e4WMeaLyRU0ILO7JerjcdAQ/s1600/IMG_6597xmas.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhIvvK8Xrk4yXr9Uj-onUFI04LE4MORaOVHLNDsg22Bu2vWuJ-LKIMdbwTS22ACfHXsDoRKsneashkScPBuE2t_Rv7NH0_mMBTZiaQFq6LHXVwd7d7e4WMeaLyRU0ILO7JerjcdAQ/s640/IMG_6597xmas.jpg" width="438" /></a></div>
<br />Heidihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01555381490834134232noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6168408.post-85211562477139437642012-12-23T10:25:00.000-08:002012-12-23T10:25:29.295-08:00Another Writing VenueI am still working on the Psyche and Eros series. I got bogged down with wanting to write about things not appropriate for an any age audience, so I started another blog behind an over-18 wall. I am happy to say I am still writing and eager to write.<br />
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More is coming here soon. That and the holidays have taken up my time, as well as my adventures in dating.<br />
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If you want to get on a private email list for the content of the new blog, send me a private message. I write there about the same sorts of things as I do here, but the focus and the content is generally suitable for adults only. Only ask if you are comfortable with reading the intimate details, well-written, if feedback so far is to be believed.<br />
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It is titled <i>Soft Animal Body. </i>The inspiration comes from Mary Oliver's poem <i>Wild Geese. </i>This pretty much sums up the theme.<br />
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<div style="text-align: center;">
<i>You do not have to be good. </i></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<i>You do not have to walk on your knees </i></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<i>For a hundred miles through the desert, repenting. </i></div>
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<i>You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves. </i></div>
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<i>Tell me about your despair, yours, and I will tell you mine. </i></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<i>Meanwhile the world goes on. </i></div>
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<i> </i>
Heidihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01555381490834134232noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6168408.post-57837608895969413142012-11-29T12:20:00.000-08:002012-11-29T12:20:05.162-08:00When Did You Know?For several years I'd been behaving monogamously and these conversations didn't come up very much. Now that I'm behaving polyamorously again, the conversations are happening. As I regale my friends with my adventures in dating. I often get asked, "When did you know you were poly?" The same happens with my dates, actually.<br />
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I've settled on a simple answer. I didn't have these words then, but when I was 17 or 18 I knew I didn't want to get married; I knew I didn't want to be tied down to one man. In truth, though, the answer isn't so simple.<br />
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I had some very specific reasons I didn't want to get married. I wanted to date, and I wanted to experience sex with more than one person. That sure sounds like a polyamorous mind. I also didn't want to marry because the example I had was my mom's marriage to my stepfather. She cooked his meals (or us kids did) and waited on him, bringing him everything he needed while he stood at the bar or sat on the couch. He never seemed to do something for her, and he was abusive towards us kids, me especially. My mom was a good mom, but this man had her blinded. I was never going to put myself in that position.<br />
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Now as an adult, and having witnessed some of the dynamics of dominant/ submissive relationships, and having experienced some submissive tendencies in my own self, I can understand the appeal this relationship had for my mom. It actually gives her more culpability in the abuse than I used to assign to her in the past. As enticing as those dom/sub dynamics might be, I can also see how there can be a dangerously fuzzy line between abuse and sexual preference. Just as an example, I witnessed a conversation on facebook in which a friend had been defriended because a dom told the sub to do so. From my crisis line days, I know limiting contact with friends is a yellow flag indicating possible abuse. To the dom/ sub people, this is something doms might do. <br />
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I wanted to avoid the unequal dynamic of marriage, but life intervened. My college boyfriend became my boyfriend because that's how things happened. Theoretically an open relationship, people still saw us as boyfriend and girlfriend, and most weren't inclined to come between at my small college. Our default understanding of relationship was also monogamous, and while I had a few other encounters then, the longer we were together, the more this became the expected thing. When it came closer to a time to part, his graduation, I tried to find ways to end it, poorly, as can be expected I suppose of the early twenties. <br />
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Habit, fear, and some bit of love kept us together and we got married, moved to Portland. Theoretically still open, I behaved monogamously, and encouraged him to seek sex with others. He did, a little, but felt guilt-ridden after, even though I had no qualms about it, even found it intriguing. He was the monogamous-minded one.<br />
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Those were the years of intensive spiritual practice for me. I've always been adventurous sexually, but I wasn't as interested in it as often as he was. I thought it was because my spiritual energy was taking front seat. I even got that notion from a book by Thich Nhat Hanh. Now I have to wonder at taking advice from a celibate on sexual matters. Perhaps it should at least be balanced out by advice from a sex therapist.<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/hoogstra/3391080259/" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" title="freedom by hoogstra, on Flickr"><img alt="freedom" height="375" src="http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3619/3391080259_c0ed739842.jpg" width="500" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Bonus</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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It turned out because of that spiritual practice I opened to the possibility of my being bisexual. I was 27 by this time. For my husband, the possibility of my having a female lover was acceptable. (Anyone surprised by that?) Cultivating this notion, I opened up to looking at women in a new way. Who was I attracted to? That opened the gates, and I didn't just start noticing the women, I started noticing the men. In hindsight, I now know it wasn't that spiritual energy was my focus, it was that I had shut down a good portion of my sexual energy subconsciously to protect the monogamous relationship.<br />
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What a blessing it was when I met my sweetie and we confessed we both wanted to try an open relationship. We still didn't know much. We discovered it might be best to behave monogamously for a while, while still in the throes of new love. Later we, or I, rather, gained confidence when we met others who were making a go of this (new word) polyamory. I learned that while my original 18 year old impulse not to be monogamous was about not being tied down, that in my thirties I could really love more than one person, and it would not harm my love, only expand it.<br />
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It seems as though I uncovered a natural predilection. Once I love, I will always love, even when other loves come along. On the other hand, I have become the person I am through my experiences, and through a steadfast life of reflection and mindfulness. I have found I shape who I am through my choices. Dan Savage <a href="http://www.thestranger.com/seattle/SavageLove?oid=15339984" target="_blank">says non-monogamy is not a sexual orientation</a>. Many poly folks <a href="http://tacit.livejournal.com/391193.html" target="_blank">say it is</a>. (Found via the facebook feed of <a href="http://www.modernpoly.com/" target="_blank">Modern Poly</a>.)<br />
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I think I say it is both-and. I may push some buttons, but I'm going to say it, even the usual notions sexual orientation may be both something we're born with and a choice. For some people, it is clearly something they're born to. I myself, if I had never left Wisconsin, might still be totally straight. My experiences in Santa Fe and in Portland allowed me to turn on the switch so now I am consciously bisexual. I now am consciously polyamorous. Even while behaving monogamously these past few years, I still identified as polyamorous, and I know I could never revert. I have too many loves in my heart, whether active or inactive, that if I were to revert, would be killed. I am still more straight than gay, but I know if I cultivated more female lovers, I would find more women attractive and I would slide over on the spectrum closer to gay. Thoughts and behaviors change the mind.<br />
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I have friends who, while single, have been very friendly to the notion of polyamory, even considered themselves polyamorous. Then they meet someone, fall in love, and choose the monogamous route. They shrug, and are happy to love the one they're with. Dan Savage is right, this is something we can choose. Franklin Veaux is also right, that some of us could never be content with a monogamous life, could never be who we feel we are meant to be. Internally I shake my head at these friends. New love settles, and then, if you are normally inclined to be not-monogamous, you might find yourself unhappy and not knowing why. On the other hand, you might be wise enough in the ways of self to steer yourself always toward happiness with this one, or perhaps you really are more of a monogamous bent.<br />
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So when did I know? When I had the words and the notion that it was possible, which was really only about a dozen or fifteen years ago. But also when I had the predilection, which was perhaps as soon as I became sexually aware.<br />
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<br />Heidihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01555381490834134232noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6168408.post-49400274787612354292012-11-22T23:36:00.000-08:002012-12-19T00:51:20.697-08:00Psyche and Eros Part 1: Extended JourneyFifteen years ago, I was side-swiped by love. Looking back to see whether I'd written about this before, I found my little series from five years ago: <a href="http://adventuresinmultiplicity.blogspot.com/2007/02/this-space-of-love.html" target="_blank">This Space of Love</a>. I was a bit surprised at myself...I wrote that?! There's some pretty good stuff there. Not long after finding myself on this weepy roller-coaster of unrequited love at the age of thirty, I came across a book while shelving as a page at the library. This ranks right up there with the top five cases of serendipity in my life. Incidentally, that weepy unrequited love sent me into a depression, and it was some casual sex that pulled me out of it, thus my current strategy of seeking closer encounters now.<br />
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<a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/331705.She?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_book" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img alt="She: Understanding Feminine Psychology" src="http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1348084511m/331705.jpg" /></a>That book, <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0060963972/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=0060963972&linkCode=as2&tag=adventinmulti-20">She: Understanding Feminine Psychology</a><img alt="" border="0" height="1" src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=adventinmulti-20&l=as2&o=1&a=0060963972" style="border: none !important; margin: 0px !important;" width="1" />, has been a presence in my life ever since. At that time, it sure helped to learn that there was no avoiding the heartbreak, even if I had ended up with that person. There must be a period of <a href="http://soultherapynow.com/articles/individuation.html" target="_blank">individuation</a>, where I find myself and I busy myself with tasks of the hands that occupy my mind a little, but aren't too complex. I spent a lot of time that year folding origami. In the time following, I recognized that I wouldn't have fallen in love if I hadn't been ready for that. The author informed me not everyone experiences this transformative love, that a grandmother could still be 'virginal' in her psychological love framework.<br />
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Consequent to my experiences, I have said many times it is my hypothesis that love isn't about soul mates, but about people coming together at the right time, sometimes the wrong people, but one or both is ripe for falling in love. And then when one does, there's a good likelihood one will go through the mythical archetype of Eros and Psyche. I'm glad to see <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Robert-A.-Johnson/e/B000APIDYA/?_encoding=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&linkCode=ur2&tag=adventinmulti-20" target="_blank">Robert A Johnson's</a><img alt="" border="0" height="1" src="https://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=adventinmulti-20&l=ur2&o=1" style="border: none !important; margin: 0px !important;" width="1" /> books on He and She are both available on Kindle. I'd like to read the one, and revisit the other, but not yet. <br />
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First, I'd like to explore the myth to find my own understanding, and find the telling of the myth in my own life. There's a pair of poems brewing, too. Then, maybe I'll get to those very short books, and do some more exploration. <a href="http://bookshelvesofdoom.blogs.com/bookshelves_of_doom/2012/11/the-frog-king-or-iron-heinrich-from-fairy-tales-from-the-brothers-grimm-a-new-english-translation-by.html" target="_blank">Philip Pullman said</a> in the introduction of <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/067002497X/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=067002497X&linkCode=as2&tag=adventinmulti-20">his new book</a><img alt="" border="0" height="1" src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=adventinmulti-20&l=as2&o=1&a=067002497X" style="border: none !important; margin: 0px !important;" width="1" />:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i>The fairy tale is in a perpetual state of becoming and alteration. To
keep to one version or one translation alone is to put a robin redbreast
in a cage. ...You are at perfect liberty to invent other details...you're not only at liberty to do
so: you have a positive duty to make the story your own. A fairy tale is
not a text.</i></blockquote>
The same, I'm sure, applies to myths. I found several versions of these gods' story, linking to one in my last post. I like <a href="http://www.catherinesvehla.com/" target="_blank">this person's version</a>, as it has the most details that I remember from my first encounter. Here are parts <a href="http://www.catherinesvehla.com/my_weblog/2011/07/eros-and-psyche.html" target="_blank">one</a>, <a href="http://www.catherinesvehla.com/my_weblog/2011/07/psyche-eros.html" target="_blank">two</a>, <a href="http://www.catherinesvehla.com/my_weblog/2011/07/pysche-eros.html" target="_blank">three</a>, and <a href="http://www.catherinesvehla.com/my_weblog/2011/07/eros-and-psyche-3.html" target="_blank">four</a>. She also has some great analysis, but again, I want to find my own way first. (Let me tell you, the new <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/sendtokindle/ref=amb_link_357628962_20?pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_s=left-1&pf_rd_r=0FT87AKHS2E9G1VPQC43&pf_rd_t=101&pf_rd_p=1403848182&pf_rd_i=133141011" target="_blank">Send to Kindle</a> toolbar button is my new best friend for extended web reading.)<br />
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<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.bonzasheila.com/art/archives/mar08/images/31.%20Lagrenee,%20Louis%20Jean%20Francois%20-%20Eros%20And%20Psyche.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://www.bonzasheila.com/art/archives/mar08/images/31.%20Lagrenee,%20Louis%20Jean%20Francois%20-%20Eros%20And%20Psyche.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.bonzasheila.com/art/archives/mar08/31.html" target="_blank">Found here</a></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
At the age of thirty, once I was on that mythic journey of Eros and Psyche, my psyche wasn't going to be finished until I found that love. I think. I don't know what would have happened if I hadn't found a beloved. Happily, I found it in my third love, my life-long sweetie I live with today. Funny thing, Important Conclusions happen in threes in those archetypal fairy tales as well. He was the Eros that did not run away.<br />
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First I'd like to capture the story in a few plot lines. Then I may examine those plot lines more deeply, but I may be impatient and get to work on the pair of poems. I may have mentioned in the past I am only occasionally a poet. I don't really try to make poems happen, but sometimes poems insist they happen and I become a poet. This is a case where I foresee a lot of groundwork happening before I can even write the poems, and may well be the most complex poems I will have written.<br />
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The Story of Eros and Psyche<br />
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<ol>
<li>Psyche is so beautiful that people compare her to Aphrodite and neglect the temples of the Goddess of Love. The Goddess of Love is pissed.</li>
<li>Aphrodite seeks vengeance, and solicits the help of her son, Eros.</li>
<li>Meanwhile, Psyche's parents seek the advice of the oracle of Apollo (God of Music, Light, and Reason) and learn Psyche is destined to marry no mortal.</li>
<li>Psyche is sent to a mountain as a bride to her unknown, scary bridegroom</li>
<li>Eros is taken by her beauty, and (oops, how'd that happen?) pricks himself with his own arrow. He has a God of Wind carry her to his palace.</li>
<li>Psyche finds incredible riches in her new palatial home, and voices that inform her that they will meet her every need.</li>
<li>Her new husband visits her only at night, a very pleasurable recurring event. </li>
<li>But during the day she becomes lonely and bored. She pleas with her husband to have her sisters brought to visit. She has become pregnant and wants to share her joy. Eros warns her that no good would come from such a visit.</li>
<li>Her sisters are somewhat jealous of Psyche's wealth. They raise concerns about the unseen husband, that he could be a monster, and the neighbors say he is a monstrous serpent. (ha!) Psyche protests he is good and kind, but she also has doubts. The sisters convince her to take a lamp and a knife to her marriage bed, and if he is a monster, she should cut off his head.</li>
<li>Psyche lifts her lamp, and sees the divine. </li>
<li>Psyche pricks herself on one of his arrows, and falls in love with Love.</li>
<li>Lamp oil burns Eros, and he sees betrayal and mistrust. He leaves her. She is disconsolate.</li>
<li>Psyche wanders in search of her husband. She comes upon a magnificent temple and hopes to find her love. It is a temple to Demeter (Goddess of Fertility, Grain, and Agriculture). Psyche sorts and arranges the food offerings. Demeter cannot help her, but advises Psyche make amends with Aphrodite.</li>
<li>Aphrodite sends Psyche on four<a href="http://www.catherinesvehla.com/my_weblog/2011/08/impossible-tasks.html" target="_blank"> impossible tasks</a>, and with each task, Psyche weeps, and receives help: ants help with sorting grain; the reeds advise her on gathering golden fleece; the eagle of Zeus fetches her water from the river of life; and a voice from the tower she climbs to throw herself off advises her on the trip to the underworld to fetch a drop of Persephone's beauty. Another version has Eros secretly helping these along. </li>
<li>Returning from the underworld, Psyche realizes she looks bedraggled and fatigued with pregnancy. She opens the box for a bit of that beauty and a mist envelopes her, putting her to sleep.</li>
<li>Eros finally comes along, and gathers up the mist and returns it to the box, and revives Psyche.</li>
<li>Eros takes her to Olympus and Zeus makes her immortal as a wedding gift. Aphrodite is fine with that, as Psyche will no longer be on earth seducing mortals away from her.</li>
</ol>
<div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://t0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcQvLRWnsuJdT1P-Tl913ABDSizwkDHCuNWBGXuFgKDs09rse0zabM24yRQ7HA" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="277" src="http://t0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcQvLRWnsuJdT1P-Tl913ABDSizwkDHCuNWBGXuFgKDs09rse0zabM24yRQ7HA" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.preraphaelites.org/the-collection/1922p196/cupid-and-psyche-palace-green-murals-psyche-giving-the-coin-to-the-ferryman-of-the-styx/" target="_blank">Found here</a></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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<div>
Next I want to revisit the <a href="http://adventuresinmultiplicity.blogspot.com/2004/08/its-all-about-love.html" target="_blank">neuro-chemicals of love</a>, and see how that fits with the story.</div>
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<br />Heidihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01555381490834134232noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6168408.post-30826768373219505402012-11-20T23:21:00.000-08:002012-11-21T21:33:19.363-08:00Adventures in Dating<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<div style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;">
The good news is that my campaign to lift myself out of depression is working. That bad news is that it is keeping me too busy to find time to write, though I have been percolating with ideas, and that wasn't happening when I was depressed. I've also been too busy to read so much. As a bonus, I've found that I want to be more active...and here I was beating myself up for not being active enough, with that inactivity affecting my health. It proves once again my hypothesis if everything is working the way it should, we <i>will</i> do what is right for our bodies. I was depressed, and didn't feel like getting out and moving. In fact, it could hurt more, aches and pains, getting older. Not so depressed, there is lightness in my step, and I feel invigorated rather than fatigued. So the lesson once again is, rather than place the blame on laziness, look for the reasons underlying the symptom. </div>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/hoogstra/199423913/" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" title="Mondrian's Composition in Brown and Gray by hoogstra, on Flickr"><img alt="Mondrian's Composition in Brown and Gray" height="400" src="http://farm1.staticflickr.com/47/199423913_210c0a6ad4.jpg" width="300" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Mondrian's Composition in Brown and Gray</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Just the knowledge that I've been depressed helped me lift myself out, some. Thanks to my Buddhist training, I have the skill to catch a thought at its inception (sometimes) and when I could catch that thought, I could also make a choice. I would say to myself, "Oh, there's that depressed impulse again. I don't need to fall into it." And I would look up, rather than hunker down in. Let me say that I don't think people who are ill can just decide not to be sick, and people with depression can just decide not to be depressed. In my case, I am not naturally prone to depression, and I don't think I was severely depressed, though it must have been going on for a long time. With this awareness, I could steer myself toward my more natural positive state of mind.<br />
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The other main action has been my adventures in dating. I can't count the ways I am grateful for my relationship with my sweetie, nor can words say how deeply I love him. I believe our freedom makes this deep love possible. We are a lot of things to each other, but we don't have to provide everything the other wants or likes, nor do we expect it from each other. I have no reason to be resentful or disappointed, and I'm not. He loves me even though I'm a pack rat and leave messy habitats wherever I go! When has a couple been evenly matched on how often they want to have sex? When have they been interested in the same exact things? What we do expect is honesty and consideration; these are the signs our relationship is healthy. On my adventures in dating, I have the freedom to seek what I need with the comfort of knowing my existing love will not be torn apart. <br />
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Just as an aside, I learned a few things about this particular scene. One thing, online dating is the thing for us fat women. All I have to do is wait, and those who are looking for someone exactly like me come and find me. I don't have to approach only to be rejected. They find <i>me! </i>Another thing, there are a lot of way younger guys who are looking for older, large women. What's up with that? I was talking to another quite bosomy woman who is thirty-three. (I, if you haven't been keeping up, am forty-five.) We were comparing our experiences with online dating. She said she seems to attract older, creepy guys. I said I too have had interest from some older guys, but have been surprised by how many younger men are interested in me, and not just geek boys (who are sexy) but fit, athletic guys. Just that alone patches up a whole bunch of tears in self-esteem that might still exist from years of being considered too fat to be sexy. When I said she should go to the site I'm using, she said, "Oh, I'm too young." They might be twenty, but these particular guys are looking for me, not her. Baffling, but hey! I'm not looking for that much younger, but I'll give them a chance.<br />
<br />
Another thing learned, sexting is the thing they're into. Instead of talking on the phone and getting excited, or chatting online, they're looking for sexy texting. Oh, that is hard on my thumbs. And then sometimes it turns out that's <i>all</i> they are looking for, and when it comes time to actually meet me in person, they turn into flakes. Hmmm. Finally, I've learned it's a little suspicious if they don't post a photo as part of their profile...could be a sign of cheating. This is the thing that's difficult to navigate. I don't want to <a href="http://www.academia.edu/166185/ISDP_Mate_Poaching" target="_blank">poach</a>, so the ones who are honest are left to continue suffering, but the liars get to cheat all they want until their actions start to reveal their secrets. I feel for the honest ones, I do...they aren't getting what they need, and they don't see a way to find it in their existing relationship. They still love, but don't know how to fix what's broken. I think the sexting without follow-through may be related to this, that these guys are seeking stimulation without it seeming to be cheating.<br />
<br />
If you're reading, you who don't want to be cheating dogs, you need to be brave and talk to her. Tell her what you've always wanted and haven't been able to find with her, but that you love her. And that you want her to have a way to find what she's always wanted too. We always change, all of us, and our needs change, while our love remains. Yes, the monogamist way is often to break it off, to allow the love to wither, and to seek the next monogamous partner that newly meets our needs. Or to cheat. Sometimes, and this has to be very hard, steer the changes together so that the two still mesh. Sometimes this is possible, many loves, to seek new loves, or simply to date, while consciously nurturing this love you've dedicated so much of your life to. How could you tear it apart? You could be surprised. If you are careful, and considerate, and take it slowly, you could find what you're looking for and keep what you have.<br />
<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.catherinesvehla.com/.a/6a00e55503899c8834014e8a17912b970d-pi" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://www.catherinesvehla.com/.a/6a00e55503899c8834014e8a17912b970d-pi" width="230" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Psyche looks upon the divine Eros</td></tr>
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I've found those endorphins I needed. I found that boosts to the ego sure help lift depression as well. I've had some awkward encounters, some nice encounters, some really hot encounters, and one very profound encounter. At the time I told him I felt we touched a bit of heaven. Later I told him I felt the act we shared opened a gateway and returned a piece of me to me, and it was a sacred moment. All these encounters helped with endorphins, but this one, I think, brought the healing I needed. Then, of course, I struggled with attaching to that and falling a little bit in love...how could I not? Classic <a href="http://www.greeka.com/greece-myths/eros-psyche.htm" target="_blank">Eros and Psyche</a>. (That's another writing project.) Heidihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01555381490834134232noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6168408.post-58118392529913580572012-11-06T19:30:00.004-08:002012-11-06T19:30:45.698-08:00ElectionsI can't believe I'm doing this, writing about elections on election day. I've avoided just about all election coverage I could. No, I didn't watch any of the debates. Why would I want to see someone I would like to do better, and another that just about makes me sick to watch, when I knew I was voting for not-that-guy? (Though I was particularly proud of my book groupies who wanted to come to the October book group and also wanted to watch one of those debates, and someone shared that it would be on hulu, so they all came to the book group and learned how to find it on hulu.)<br />
<br />
So no, I don't know what inspiring things Obama has been saying, things that I now would not entirely trust. I hold a little hope that if he does win, that is if the election isn't stolen from him, that he could bring about some more of the changes he promised last time, such as withdrawal of troops from Iraq, and bring about more substantial change to the changes he has made, such a more universal health care. (now I better finish before it is all decided before our polls close here in Oregon)<br />
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<a href="http://www.nndb.com/people/222/000044090/john-adams.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="http://www.nndb.com/people/222/000044090/john-adams.jpg" width="312" /></a></div>
What I really came here to say is that I've been enjoying reading <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/141657588X/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=141657588X&linkCode=as2&tag=adventinmulti-20">John Adams</a><img alt="" border="0" height="1" src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=adventinmulti-20&l=as2&o=1&a=141657588X" style="border: none !important; margin: 0px !important;" width="1" /> by David McCullough for our November book group during this election season. While people I know have been grousing about our lack of true democracy in our nation on Facebook, I've been reading about the birth of our nation.<br />
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: white; color: #333333; display: inline !important; float: none; font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 17.36111068725586px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 22.615739822387695px; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;">At home, [Adams] filled pages of his journal with observations on government and freedom, “notes for an oration at Braintree,” as he labeled them, though the oration appears never to have been delivered. Government is nothing more than the combined force of society, or the united power of the multitude, for the peace, order, safety, good and happiness of the people. . . . There is no king or queen bee distinguished from all others, by size or figure or beauty and variety of colors, in the human hive. No man has yet produced any revelation from heaven in his favor, any divine communication to govern his fellow men. Nature throws us all into the world equal and alike. . . . The preservation of liberty depends upon the intellectual and moral character of the people. As long as knowledge and virtue are diffused generally among the body of a nation, it is impossible they should be enslaved. . . . Ambition is one of the more ungovernable passions of the human heart. The love of power is insatiable and uncontrollable. . . . There is danger from all men. The only maxim of a free government ought to be to trust no man living with power to endanger the public liberty.</span> <i>Part I, Chapter One, Section II, p. 55</i></blockquote>
One of those friends asked why someone would want to become president, as they clearly age 20 years while in office, and yet, they turn around and do it again. Talk ensued of attraction to power, of narcissism, etc. Our manner of elections encourage this at almost all levels. If a person enters the political arena from ideals, and a pretty good moral compass, it is difficult to retain authenticity and honor. Good people often don't wish to taint their own moral ground by getting involved in politics. They effect change close to home, in non-governmental ways.<br />
<br />
I got involved in the peace efforts thinking I acted not politically, but from the heart. I felt a visceral response to someone calling it political action, but I had to realize, that is what taking it to the streets is. It is political to vote. It is political to withhold a vote. It is political to speak up about how <a href="http://www.indiegogo.com/bpf-the-system-stinks" target="_blank">the system stinks</a>. It is political to organize a permitted rally and march. As soon as I have an intent to change someone's mind about how this society works together, it is political, no matter that it comes from the deepest faith in love from my heart. In this we are all thrust "into the world equal and alike."<br />
<br />
As I read McCullough's book, I am admiring John Adams because he did not get into politics for personal power. It is clear he got involved due to love of his homeland. He did things he did not want to do, such as act as a Minister in Europe, first in France, then to the Dutch, then in Britain. He was seven years away from his beloved wife, who finally joined him after her first dreaded Atlantic voyage. He did this to his own financial detriment, and often wasn't even thanked by the congress. His political action was from his heart.<br />
<br />
I would like to have some choice. I would like to feel I live in a true democracy. We need to find a more effective way for our nation to reflect the "united power of the multitude." We need:<br />
<ol>
<li>Election day to be a national holiday. (duh)</li>
<li>We need to consider individual voters innocent of fraud until proven guilty...so all those laws that prevent individuals from voting need to be rescinded, such as having to prove themselves with ID.</li>
<li>We need to have equal access. Thus there has to be enough places and equipment so people don't have to wait to vote, or have to prove they have the right to vote, or have to lose a job to take the time to vote. People need to be able to register the same day they wish to vote.</li>
<li>We need to prevent election tampering, and that means getting corporations with agendas out of the business. It is currently much easier for one person to affect wide ranges of votes with a single machine, than it is for one voter to do something fraudulent.</li>
<li>We need to have a choice, and by that I mean we need to be able to vote for more than two nominally polarized candidates. We need preferential or ranked choice voting, or<a href="http://www.instantrunoff.com/the-basics" target="_blank"> instant run-off voting</a>. Or something as democratic. So I could vote for my true choice, as well as vote for not-that-guy. I could vote for the woman who is not paid for by the corporations.</li>
</ol>
Have I forgotten something? Please add to my list.<br />
<br />
Heidihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01555381490834134232noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6168408.post-76547115675525138582012-10-18T09:29:00.000-07:002012-10-18T09:29:00.928-07:00How to Live: Or A Life of Montaigne...<a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/8103681-how-to-live?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_book" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="How to Live: Or A Life of Montaigne in One Question and Twenty Attempts at an Answer" height="320" src="http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1320474910m/8103681.jpg" width="213" /></a> My book group read <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1590514831/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=1590514831&linkCode=as2&tag=adventinmulti-20">How to Live: Or A Life of Montaigne in One Question and Twenty Attempts at an Answer</a><img alt="" border="0" height="1" src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=adventinmulti-20&l=as2&o=1&a=1590514831" style="border: none !important; margin: 0px !important;" width="1" />
in September. That's a mouthful. These convoluted titles seem to be a trend lately. Don't let that stop you from checking out this book. Almost all of the book groupees loved this book, though some were hesitant to begin.<br />
<br />
This was one of my subversive picks. Since I am the one who tallies the votes for our year's picks, I get to target my votes. I made sure this one made the cut. I needed to have a reason to read this book, and sometimes, no matter how much I want to read a book, I won't get around to it unless duty calls...so I made sure duty called. Several of my co-conspirators in book group facilitation do the same thing. And as I suspected, I loved it. And I fell in love with Montaigne. As I said in the book group, I am so jealous that I never get to meet Montaigne, that I can't travel back to his time. <br />
<br />
This book also made me feel like I could begin blogging again. How to live? That is indeed the question of my life, right next to 'What does this mean, to be alive?' Along with getting a taste of Montaigne and a peek at his life, we get the view of Montaigne down through history. Individuals brought him forward into their age and found their own reflections in his essays. There are the Stoics and the Romantics...everybody finds something in Montaigne. Pascal and Descartes hated him (as he anticipated and decimated their arguments). Regarding thes two, some of what Sarah Bakewell says is this:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 17.36111068725586px; line-height: 22.615739822387695px;">Descartes cannot truly exchange a glance with an animal. Montaigne can, and does. In one famous passage, he mused: “When I play with my cat, who knows if I am not a pastime to her more than she is to me?” And he added in another version of the text: “We entertain each other with reciprocal monkey tricks. If I have my time to begin or to refuse, so has she hers.” He borrows his cat’s point of view in relation to him just as readily as he occupies his own in relation to her.</span></blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 17.36111068725586px; line-height: 22.615739822387695px;">This comfortable acceptance of life as it is, and of one’s own self as it is, drove Pascal to a greater fury than Pyrrhonian Skepticism itself. The two go together. Montaigne places everything in doubt, but then he deliberately reaffirms everything that is familiar, uncertain, and ordinary—for that is all we have. His Skepticism makes him celebrate imperfection: the very thing Pascal, as much as Descartes, wanted to escape but never could.</span></blockquote>
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Montaigne was the first to write the essay, and now, in this world of personal blogs, we live his legacy. He wrote like we do, in stream of consciousness, about anything he encountered and pondered in his life. Unlike blogging, where we may never revisit our blatherings, Montaigne goes back, and inserts new thoughts into old essays, often, according to Bakewell, not bothering to make his difference in age make sense. Some editions of Montaigne indicate different timelines with A, B, and C. Of course, we do link back to our past lives in essays.<br />
<br />
Montaigne is a man of my own heart. He resolved to pay attention, and did so in his essays. Of all the vows I have made through the years, this is my top pick. I trust in paying attention. All the while I was not blogging, at least I was paying attention. Whatever I noticed may have slipped through the sieve of my brain...sometimes if writing is anything it is to catch the sand of thoughts before the grains slip through the holes...but I was waiting with my attention for something to give me a reason for my frozen state.<br />
<br />
<a href="http://theculturevulture.co.uk/blog/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/montaigne.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://theculturevulture.co.uk/blog/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/montaigne.jpg" /></a>I hoped this book could inspire people to read Montaigne. It certainly did me, and I hope to read Montaigne and find my reflection in him, as so many others have before me. I've tried a slow read of hefty non-fiction tomes before. I fizzled out with <a href="http://adventuresinmultiplicity.blogspot.com/search/label/People%27s%20History" target="_blank">A People's History</a>. So, I only say, "I hope." I only know my way in to blogging feels kinda broken, and perhaps I need a mentor of sorts, like Montaigne. It won't just be a reading of a text, but it will be the query, "How to live?" As I've mentioned, I don't seem to be able to stick to a plan unless I have an externally imposed deadline, so I'm making no plan. Maybe I'll visit Montaigne once a week and reflect...maybe once a month, but I do know I look forward to meeting his mind.<br />
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<br />Heidihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01555381490834134232noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6168408.post-51931288565133975702012-10-17T23:42:00.000-07:002012-10-18T19:46:50.143-07:00Blogging About BooksI did a tiny little bit of blogging this past year...as a library book blogger.<br />
<br />
They were seeking new blood for the library's blog, and I put my name in. It's not very often, but gratifying. I've been posting under the name Enji because there already was a Heidi writing for the blog. This is going to end, and my future posts will be under the name Heidi H.<br />
<br />
Here they are:<br />
<br />
<a href="http://blogs.multcolib.org/readers/entry/great_books_i_never_would" target="_blank">Great Books I Never Would Have Chosen</a><br />
(I forgot to submit a title, so it's not exactly a title in my style.)<br />
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<a href="http://blogs.multcolib.org/readers/entry/ya_for_grown_ups_historical" target="_blank">YA for Grown-ups: Historical Fiction Edition</a><br />
<br />
<a href="http://blogs.multcolib.org/readers/entry/highlanders_fairies_and_vampires_oh" target="_blank">Highlanders, Fairies, and Vampires, oh my!</a><br />
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<a href="http://blogs.multcolib.org/readers/entry/ya_for_adults_tough_girls" target="_blank">YA for Adults: Tough Girls You'll Love</a><br />
<br />
<a href="http://blogs.multcolib.org/readers/entry/mary_doria_russell_from_sparrow1" target="_blank">Mary Doria Russell: From Sparrow to Doc</a><br />
<br />
In July, we had to cut hours and staff at the library, so the library's blog went from several posts a week to one post or less. We all have less time to do these kinds of things, because you know if a library's hours reduce, there aren't necessarily any less items checked out, right? We're just that much busier during the times we're open.<br />
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<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/hoogstra/2209206278/" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;" title="Untitled by hoogstra, on Flickr"><img alt="Untitled" height="375" src="http://farm3.staticflickr.com/2357/2209206278_a033119ea6.jpg" width="500" /></a></div>
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Oh, should I mention, if you live in Multnomah County, you should be voting <a href="http://portlandtribune.com/pt/10-opinion/116268-our-opinion--say-yes-to-school-bond-library-district" target="_blank">for the Library District</a>? That's right, I knew I didn't have to, because you already are planning to vote Yes. You are not my friend if you are voting No. Ppffffthhht.<br />
<br />
PS<br />
Hey, I just noticed the Google Doodle for today is <a href="http://www.google.com/doodles/161st-anniversary-of-moby-dicks-first-publishing" target="_blank">commemorating the 161st Anniversary of Moby Dick</a>. And a few minutes before that I noticed my own blog's post with the highest page views (6705) is <a href="http://adventuresinmultiplicity.blogspot.com/2008/12/moby-dick-chapters-29-24.html" target="_blank">Moby Dick: Chapters 29-34</a>, from my slow read. I don't know why that one over all the other ones. My second-highest page view is <a href="http://adventuresinmultiplicity.blogspot.com/2009/01/moby-dick-chapters-55-60.html" target="_blank">Moby Dick: Chapters 55-60</a> with 2695 views.<br />
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<br />Heidihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01555381490834134232noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6168408.post-71632396462838610052012-10-14T23:38:00.000-07:002012-10-14T23:38:41.656-07:00RipeningHow does one resurrect a dead blog? In 2010 and 2011 I tried with a few fizzles. I consciously knew of some reasons. This has never been simply a book blog, but it was devolving into one. My sweetie is never quite as comfortable as I am talking about certain things, and I was feeling hesitant about some topics for his sake. Whenever I come up with a plan, as I attempted to, I invariably lose some kind of impetus. Is that self-sabotage? Or is that feeling the loss of the energy of spontaneity? I know I do well with the duty of deadlines, but I can never seem to trick myself into imposing them on myself. In some ways, I didn't feel like I had much interesting to say.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/hoogstra/868220613/" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" title="IMG_0064 copy by hoogstra, on Flickr"><img alt="IMG_0064 copy" height="364" src="http://farm2.staticflickr.com/1230/868220613_937e9f1221.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">My mom, July 2007</td></tr>
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More recently, though I felt the wish to write, and have had quite a few hefty topics I wished to write about, I'd think about it for a day and then never get around to it. I was only interested in reading. Reading became an obsession. I was consciously aware I turned to predictable pap after my mom died. Yes, <a href="http://www.plymouth-review.com/news/2012-01-24/Obituaries/GAIL_R_NACK.html" target="_blank">my mom died</a> and I couldn't bring myself to write about it here. It was partly because I didn't know what to say, and partly because I didn't want to bring this thing back to life with a death. I knew I needed to grieve, but reading was a way to take a break.<br />
<br />
Until it tilted over into my default activity. If I didn't have anything else to do, and even if I did, I read. I keep an eye out for free kindle books, but I buy many as well. So much so that when my kindle stopped working, Amazon replaced it for free even though it was past warranty. I certainly became too sedentary.<br />
<br />
Even more recently, when I shared this embarrassing obsession a person at the right time suggested perhaps depression is involved. Often when I mentioned it, people said well if I'm going to have an obsession, reading is a good one to have. This is why I'm embarrassed...no...it's not good when it affects my health, and not when I can't set it aside.<br />
<br />
Fortunately, it has been my pattern that once something is conscious and able to be Named, its days are numbered. Even just the thought sequence, <i>'oh yeah, i'm depressed, that's why this is hard'</i> has lessened the feeling of depression. <br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgx1TCjZ1qAmVQInwOZq3pJcxpg1dsNjcE7nr8tAzRbLG3e1q2LiF0Ry5ituhNPsVOXasHF4wWAh6Kt4N2sDsKFmRXYVpGhNEtO40lx_-xxLs7IOFHUKi4PBLAjMKXQITuBtXyr5w/s1600/moto_0027.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgx1TCjZ1qAmVQInwOZq3pJcxpg1dsNjcE7nr8tAzRbLG3e1q2LiF0Ry5ituhNPsVOXasHF4wWAh6Kt4N2sDsKFmRXYVpGhNEtO40lx_-xxLs7IOFHUKi4PBLAjMKXQITuBtXyr5w/s320/moto_0027.jpg" width="240" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Patrick, ?2009</td></tr>
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So then, I started adding up the reasons why I could be depressed. Several deaths: a few years back, <a href="http://adventuresinmultiplicity.blogspot.com/2009/06/too-young-to-die.html" target="_blank">my nephew</a>, and in January this year, my mom. She was just a few days shy of 70. And I've confessed it before to individuals, and I'll confess it now for the world to see, well, he even said it himself, her husband was supposed to die first. He's a jerk, and someone should have diagnosed him a sociopath at least 30 years ago. Then this May, <a href="http://www.anewtradition.com/obituaries/obituary/5450_Patrick_Christopher_Finneran" target="_blank">my friend Patrick died</a> almost immediately after a cancer diagnosis. Happily, I was able to help with hospice vigil, and go out to lunch one last time along with his brother, oh jeez, was his name Brian?<br />
<br />
Also in there I lost another friend. After nearly 20 years, she broke it off with me. There was conflict, but nothing that couldn't have normally been dealt with and forgiven. There's no divorce when friendships end, but there is heartbreak.<br />
<br />
I'm sure there are other things that contributed to the sink into depression, including the reading thing that at first was a comforting salve, along with the lack of activity.<br />
<br />
I am not prone to depression, which is perhaps why I couldn't see it. Perhaps I didn't want to see it, as well. One other time in my life I was seriously depressed, heartbroken. The thing that helped me climb out? Some feisty no-strings sex, along with some happy dope. Ahhh, endorphins and dopamine! At that time, meditation did not help, but now, with this creeping malaise, I think it would.<br />
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For now, I am seeking those fun endorphins (wink wink). It is already helping. I've started keeping my <a href="http://dharmaschool.blogspot.com/" target="_blank">Dharma School blog</a> again, and here I am, excited to write again, feeling like I might have something interesting to say. I feel the urge to take photos again. I appreciate the friends I still have, and the deepening friendship of a couple in particular with whom I can talk about anything...I mean anything. Perhaps soon I will be able to pick up that daily habit of meditation again. Oh, and since I picked up those extra endorphins, I have actually put the kindle away for hours at a time!<br />
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<br />Heidihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01555381490834134232noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6168408.post-401333067705738842011-11-09T22:50:00.001-08:002012-10-14T21:37:02.454-07:00Thoughts on facilitating a book group<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjgNw-9Gq4P7qSKF5EdMYjtWAdb9l4IX9YnlTbJr3L8rVwuyBLEXI7EB5_3H8Irz4bUdW9UXQcJTV9yEXHPLLjihsut8xUk_B_tZjtFQMiWR2R2HaMNLUE6iWhcjQX3DKjYNusQzw/s1600/IMG_5980_copy.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjgNw-9Gq4P7qSKF5EdMYjtWAdb9l4IX9YnlTbJr3L8rVwuyBLEXI7EB5_3H8Irz4bUdW9UXQcJTV9yEXHPLLjihsut8xUk_B_tZjtFQMiWR2R2HaMNLUE6iWhcjQX3DKjYNusQzw/s400/IMG_5980_copy.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Fall yellow with library stained glass</td></tr>
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I've been reflecting on the different ways I've been involved with books and groups lately. For the classes on "Soto Zen" I wasn't very comfortable putting myself in a position of being the authority. When an instructor, I work best more as a facilitator. I count on the wisdom of the group, and don't expect that I will have all the answers. Still, as the leader in a situation like this, they look to me to talk the most. Something I had to learn from this series was how to create more specific open-ended questions than I am used to, though I still wanted to resist my mentors' tendencies to ask questions intended to solicit specific answers. I also resisted the suggestion that I have some summary statements ready, as this would assume I knew just what would be pulled out of the class discussion. To me, a successful class happened when participants pulled something out of the material that had passed me by.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEig6xeEWPzTC_g__-sDSomtwJ6kE9gG7Ct2G88F-9YAn9FM2F1k8ajZQhKydyBjFdVL3MFOQZizcxnkBjUeJGWK0BS7X6hU0LzSlkfbDU4IiyLbTPGedEOkTq3aU40xHpRv9t_b7A/s1600/2009+santa+fe+campus+2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEig6xeEWPzTC_g__-sDSomtwJ6kE9gG7Ct2G88F-9YAn9FM2F1k8ajZQhKydyBjFdVL3MFOQZizcxnkBjUeJGWK0BS7X6hU0LzSlkfbDU4IiyLbTPGedEOkTq3aU40xHpRv9t_b7A/s320/2009+santa+fe+campus+2.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">St. John's College, Santa Fe</td></tr>
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I primarily want to talk about facilitation of a book group, but before that I want to touch on my experience with my fellow alumni and our seminar discussions. <a href="http://www.stjohnscollege.edu/academic/seminar.shtml" target="_blank">Seminar</a> is our collegiate word for our book groups fashioned after our particular college experience.<br />
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Unlike other book groups, we aren't expected to bring in background information on the author, on the history of the times, or especially other people's interpretations on the work. Almost as a rule, we skip the Introduction. We expect the book or selection to speak to us on its own merits. We generally begin with a question that arises from the text, and discussion ensues from there. We're quite all right with a weighty silence as we digest the question and our thoughts on how we can pull responses from the text and our interaction with it. Unlike our college experience, some of us may bring in background historical information, just for fun, and to elucidate the text. For example, we just read <a href="http://www.amazon.com/s?ie=UTF8&x=0&ref_=nb_sb_noss&y=0&field-keywords=frankenstein&url=search-alias%3Daps&_encoding=UTF8&tag=adventinmulti-20&linkCode=ur2&camp=1789&creative=390957">Frankenstein</a><img alt="" border="0" height="1" src="https://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=adventinmulti-20&l=ur2&o=1" style="border: none !important; margin: 0px !important;" width="1" />, and I found it useful to find out when grave-robbing for medical experiments was at its height. We don't make efforts to make sure everybody has a chance to speak, or to head someone off at the pass who is talking too much. We are a leaderless group, and after the opening question, more questions may arise and no conclusions may be reached. There can be moments where we are awed by the results of our collective inquiry.<br />
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I bring aspects of this sensibility to my facilitation of book groups. Over time, regular attendees begin to get it as I guide them to raise questions that explore what we can get out of this book, what it teaches about the world and ourselves, and move beyond the impulse merely to allow the book to entertain and inform. A book really comes alive when we can interact with it, explore implications, argue with it, and learn a deeper knowledge within ourselves.<br />
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Sometimes the books we read urge us to look at our own experiences and family histories and share them with others. Sometimes the books need to be figured out, and sometimes those books have no correct answers. If we all just say, "I liked this," "I loved that," or "I hated it," there isn't much discussion to be had.<br />
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If I have the time, I will look into historical background, author biographies, and other related information that occurs to me. I'll have that available if it comes up during the conversation. Even better, I'll simply have a computer with me if we want to look up some factoid. A tablet or smartphone could do just as well, but a laptop at least will have a screen large enough to share images. Rarely will I kick off a book group with a monologue of information. It's much more interesting to volunteer the information as a need for it arises.<br />
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I'll usually begin a group with a round robin, asking people to say their names, and what they hope to talk about from the book. Even with that question, people will still say how they loved or hated the book, but enough will have questions or themes they want to explore. When people get excited and start talking at once, or a couple have a side conversation, I'll raise a finger and ask for one conversation at a time. If there is enough time, I'll ask for another round robin, asking for reflection, or if there's something anybody didn't get a chance to say. Sometimes, a book has so much depth to figure out, I'll ask an opening question just like at St. John's, but then also ask for a round robin reflection about twenty minutes before closing.Heidihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01555381490834134232noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6168408.post-57839917504693736512011-11-09T20:56:00.000-08:002011-11-09T20:56:49.418-08:00Soto Zen by Keido ChisanFrom September 14 to October 12 I co-led a class on <a href="http://shastaabbey.org/pdf/bookSotoZen.pdf" target="_blank">Soto Zen: An Introduction to the Thought of the Serene Reflection Meditation School of Buddhism</a> by Keido Chisan Koho Zenji at my Zen Center.<br />
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My co-teacher, Daicho, was able to give biographical information on Keido Chisan from a biography only available in Japanese. The audio from the first class on this and the first chapter can be <a href="https://www.onlinefilefolder.com/2sLxurZVFBC7fc" target="_blank">found here</a>. Thinking of our class series, Daicho shared his thoughts on why Keido Chisan felt so driven to bring Soto Zen to the West, and to the United States in particular, and shared details from Keido Chisan's life that supported this.<br />
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More recently, Zen Center member Unkai published her paper on Keido Chison in the newsletter, <a href="http://dharma-rain.org/?p=stillpoint11_11Nov-Unkai" target="_blank">found here</a>. She concentrates more on Keido Chisan's younger years.<br />
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Unfortunately, the 2nd class on September 21 did not record correctly...nor did the 4th class...and I thought these were our most successful classes as discussions go. (This happens because there is no way to double-check in real time that the recording is actually happening, they tell me.)<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjhnhSUbhEeD2_lscXpCelAlLHNCvBf5ic4y-NOSSCpUEvjg4T007x6eLqH435HVcbfkTfooHXGhYALzOdJeqHj2pRpzp_s_s6eUiP71OjGffzleCe4iVBtZ6ptX-golQBaX2NiXw/s1600/aniccaanattakarma.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="395" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjhnhSUbhEeD2_lscXpCelAlLHNCvBf5ic4y-NOSSCpUEvjg4T007x6eLqH435HVcbfkTfooHXGhYALzOdJeqHj2pRpzp_s_s6eUiP71OjGffzleCe4iVBtZ6ptX-golQBaX2NiXw/s400/aniccaanattakarma.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>Chapter 2 really started to make sense to me when I realized I could express it in a diagram. It was interesting to us that while the three foundational concepts of Buddhism that we usually talk about are anicca, anatta, and dukkha, in this case Koho Zenji talked about anicca, anatta, and karma (without naming them as such, but using English definitions for the "laws"). Altogether, these three laws allow what we think of as the self, always changing. If I remember right, during class someone asked me where I thought dukkha (life is marked by dissatisfaction) fit. I responded that dukkha flavors the whole thing. The more one is subject to dukkha, and the clinging to the self being a certain way, the more separate from all beings, the more solidified the flawed self is, and the more unaware one would be of the middle of the triangle.<br />
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One of our monks pointed out that the inside of the triangle reflects the transcendent experience. This pleased me, as I am tickled when something I create fits together even better than I originally conceived.<br />
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This diagram represents these statements by Koho Zenji in Chapter 2:<br />
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<blockquote><i>In Mahayana Buddhism we combine these three signs and say that they are but the One Sign which reveals the True Nature of all things. When we view the nature of things with the eyes of enlightenment, we see that all things are manifestations of Truth. </i><br />
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<i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: lime;">The law that all things are impermanent, based on the doctrines of causation and no-soul, ultimately developed into the concept of ku expounded in the Scriptures of Great Wisdom.</span></i><br />
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<i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: blue;">The law of causation, aided by the laws of impermanence and no-soul, was gradually deepened and led to the doctrine of phenomenal identity of the Kegon Kyo. Phenomenal identity is the name given to the idea that all phenomena have a deep, inseparable interrelation. Everything is related in both time and space to everything else, forming an inseparable whole, yet functioning freely.</span></i><br />
<i><br />
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<i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: magenta;">The law of the non-existence of the soul, supported by the laws of causation and impermanence, led to the development of the idea of the Buddha Nature. The Buddha Nature is the essence of the Buddha. It is That which makes him Buddha.</span></i></blockquote>Think about how radical this is, this Buddhism in the West. No soul, no God, no separable identity.<br />
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For the 3rd class on September 28, we discussed Chapters 3, 4, and 5, audio <a href="https://www.onlinefilefolder.com/2sC5CBLTItEmgL" target="_blank">found here</a>. <br />
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For the 4th class on October 5, we planned to discuss Chapters 6 and 7, but only got through Chapter 6. We discussed sectarianism, and what the good and the harm could be. We asked the question, "Why do we practice?" considering Dogen's teaching that training and enlightenment are the same, and Koho Zenji's statement, <i>"Just-sitting based on faith is the fullest form of enlightenment."</i> We also asked what people thought their Buddha Nature is, keeping in mind that as soon as we try to put words to it we would fall short. We wanted to have fun with that, though with many newbies in the class, many thought they couldn't express this. Mine, for example, is sparkly. Ebullient. In my younger years I did not have access to this consciously. <br />
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Koho Zenji says of Keizan, who is said to be the compassionate mother of Soto Zen, and who brought us our ceremonies,<br />
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<blockquote><i>We must enable them to know the joy that comes from a knowledge of the Dharma and the bliss that comes from the practice of meditation. It is absolutely essential to have a personal character like that of Great Master Keizan in order to carry out this mission. To regard all people with warm affection, to become the friend of the common people, to enter the realm of the ideal together with them and to share one's joy with others. These are the characteristics of the true man of religion.<br />
</i></blockquote>We asked people to share this joy and bliss that came from their experience in a ceremony. This particularly would have been nice to have captured in the audio.<br />
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Finally, the 5th class on October 12 can be <a href="https://www.onlinefilefolder.com/2s9NakHkQ0X6ca" target="_blank">found here</a>.Heidihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01555381490834134232noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6168408.post-14713403865897149752011-10-19T10:17:00.000-07:002011-10-19T10:17:00.507-07:00Fat Karma: Recovery from the Diet Paradigm<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/hoogstra/1247278018/" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" title="me by hoogstra, on Flickr"><img alt="me" height="240" src="http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1103/1247278018_59a9020ee2_b.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">My home altar, Prajnaparamita, Peace, and me</td></tr>
</tbody></table>This would be as good a time as any to resurrect my Fat Karma series. <a href="http://www.now.org/news/blogs/index.php/sayit/2011/10/19/lybd-blog-carnival-posts">This post is part of the 2011 Love Your Body Day Blog Carnival</a>. To see if I have covered this topic before, I skimmed over those posts and others with a related label, and found this phrase of mine, "recovery from the diet paradigm." I think it's my own phrase...maybe I picked it up somewhere. It's certainly how I've been thinking about this for many years.<br />
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I have said before that I had a consciousness of diet by the age of six. I would not be surprised if this is the norm, that a child is likely to be aware of good and bad foods, calories, the need not to be fat, and the word 'diet'. The child unhindered by this consciousness is most likely the exception. The histrionics of this eating disordered society has become even worse in the decades since my own childhood.<br />
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I grew to be a teen who could not believe she was beautiful, sexy, pretty, because she'd always received the message that she weighed too much to be any of these things. This affected my sex life in college. Even if given messages that I was sexy, I couldn't quite believe it. Even though I'd never thought I'd be the marrying type, I settled with one guy and did marry him, because though I wasn't quite conscious of the reason, deep down I was afraid no one else would have me, so I loved the one I was with.<br />
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I didn't know it at the time, but the day I started practicing meditation was the day I would begin to love my body. It would take a few years before I could get a glimpse of this, and several more years before I could believe, and even more before I could consistently act from a place of loving myself, my whole self, including my body, and my big belly.<br />
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A defining moment: post-college, in my twenties, with my first husband here in Portland. I sat down with a plate-full of rice and beans (I'd been a vegetarian since twenty-one). My husband worried that I would keep getting fatter. I don't remember precisely what he said, what he started yelling, but I remember the certainty in my response. I told him that what I was doing, my Buddhist practice, was the right thing for me, and would help me with this issue. That being fat or overeating was not the problem, it was the symptom. I knew that meditation gave me access to myself, and that my friends at the Zen Center, who were my mirrors, and my teacher, would continue to help me access myself, and get to the root of the problem.<br />
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I still spoke with the language of the diet paradigm, but this was a first step to recovery. I knew something had happened with meditation: I could no longer diet. I trusted this practice, though, as from the very beginning it gave me access to something I hadn't had before...my own inner voice.<br />
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Now I realize I could no longer diet because what you must do in order to diet is ignore the signals coming from your body. You mustn't eat when you're hungry, but you must eat only certain things, certain amounts, and at certain times. You mustn't eat for pleasure, for good taste, but for minimum sustenance and lowest calories, no matter what your insides, your mouth, your eyes, your nose tells you. To do this, you must separate from the pain, from the hunger, from the body. Meditation put me back in my body; ignoring my body's voice was no longer an option. I now know this is a central message of <a href="http://www.haescommunity.org/">Health at Every Size</a>, that if we listen to our body's signals, eat what satisfies our true hunger, we will be unlikely to be subject to the cycle of deprivation and binging that results from dieting and food restriction. No food is good or bad. No food is forbidden (unless you're allergic). Food that is appreciated is food that satisfies. In my experience, I then need less of it.<br />
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Included with my meditation practice during these years was a recurring vow to Pay Attention. As part of this, I noticed that even though I worked on my feet eight hours a day, walked to and from work for a total of more than an hour, was a vegetarian, I did not lose weight. I noticed during meditation retreats when we shared meals, it did not matter the size of people, but some people ate more than me, and some people ate less than me. While we are to set aside comparing mind during a retreat, in this mode of paying attention I began to get the message that I actually ate normally.<br />
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Also during this time I took a temporary vow not to eat chips or chocolate. This three month period taught me the ways I could squirm around a limit (I ate non-chocolate candy), but the larger lesson was learned after the vow was over. I am so grateful for this tradition at my temple, the temporary vow to intensify one's practice. I might have benefited from a Catholic upbringing. When it was over, I made the return to chocolate and chips a special occasion. While I'd mindfully abstained, after, I mindfully ate, and I found an incredible gift. I truly enjoyed that chocolate, those chips, and I realized before this vow, I'd never truly eaten them. Previously, while I ate, I also ate the guilt, and the shame, and the belief that I shouldn't really be eating them. I realized this not-eating happened with <i>all</i> food I ate. I would never not-eat when I ate again.<br />
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When I could be grateful, and love the food I put in my body, I could truly begin to make choices that nourished my whole self. I could truly begin to choose foods out of love for my body, including my body's health and my body's pleasure.<br />
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A very similar thing went on with my view of my body. I couldn't just look at my body. I could only see parts of it at a time. I couldn't like certain parts of my body. I couldn't include these as parts of me. Again, with this recurring vow of Pay Attention, I heard it when my inner voice said, "I could be bisexual." I began to notice, and cultivate an awareness of those aspects of a woman I found attractive. I noticed that I could like a generously curved woman, appreciate the parts much like the parts of myself I couldn't look at, and I would realize, if she shared parts just like mine, and I liked how she looked, why couldn't I like how I looked? I learned to lose the warped vision that comes from an eating-disordered society.<br />
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Through this process, I finally reached a point where I could believe it when a man, or a woman, told me I looked sexy. When I am truly in my body, enjoying the ways it can feel, it can move, I am loving my body, and that is sexy.<br />
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Once I gave up this language about myself, this hateful self-talk that is the diet paradigm, and I made every effort to notice it, root it out, and change the habit of self-degradation, I noticed how many people disparage themselves with it, no matter what size they are. It's insidious, how much it is part of our culture.Heidihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01555381490834134232noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6168408.post-92078527419895957152011-10-13T10:05:00.000-07:002011-10-13T10:05:00.768-07:00Eastern Oregon Trip: Thomas Condon Paleontology Center<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/hoogstra/6068565139/" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" title="view sheep rock by hoogstra, on Flickr"><img alt="view sheep rock" height="196" src="http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6069/6068565139_a1ede18f82_b.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">View of Sheep Rock from the parking lot of the Paleontology Center</td></tr>
</tbody></table><br />
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It was while we were in the <a href="http://www.nps.gov/joda/index.htm">John Day Fossil Beds National Monument</a> that we left HWY 26 and turned north on Oregon HWY 19.<br />
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I was excited to visit the <a href="http://www.nps.gov/joda/photosmultimedia/Thomas-Condon-Paleontology-Center.htm">Thomas Condon Paleontology Center</a>, two miles after our turnoff. I was reading <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0307277453/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=adventinmulti-20&linkCode=as2&camp=217145&creative=399369&creativeASIN=0307277453">Your Inner Fish</a><img alt="" border="0" height="1" src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=adventinmulti-20&l=as2&o=1&a=0307277453&camp=217145&creative=399369" style="border: none !important; margin: 0px !important;" width="1" /> for <a href="http://multcolib.org/books/groups/schedule11.html#hwdeve">my library book group</a>. I find the fossil record fascinating. When I was a kid I had a small fossil collection, several of which were found in my rural Wisconsin back yard. (I have to ask my mom if that's still around.) <br />
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In 1859 Charles Darwin published <a href="http://www.amazon.com/s?ie=UTF8&x=0&ref_=nb_sb_noss&y=0&field-keywords=origin%20of%20species&url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks?rh=i:stripbooks,k:the%20origin%20of%20species&_encoding=UTF8&tag=adventinmulti-20&linkCode=ur2&camp=1789&creative=390957">The Origin of Species</a>. Fossils were the big thing among a certain set. A minister and self-taught scientist in The Dalles, Oregon, Thomas Condon, heard about abundant fossils from soldiers in 1862, and in 1865 he began excavating fossils in this area. Condon eventually became a Professor of Geology at the University of Oregon.<img alt="" border="0" height="1" src="https://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=adventinmulti-20&l=ur2&o=1" style="border-bottom-style: none !important; border-color: initial !important; border-left-style: none !important; border-right-style: none !important; border-top-style: none !important; border-width: initial !important; margin-bottom: 0px !important; margin-left: 0px !important; margin-right: 0px !important; margin-top: 0px !important;" width="1" /><br />
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<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/hoogstra/6069112802/" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;" title="IMG_5755_1 by hoogstra, on Flickr"><img alt="IMG_5755_1" height="320" src="http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6205/6069112802_d7668fe2ed_b.jpg" width="240" /></a>A few minutes after arriving at the center, a short movie about the John Day Fossil Beds and paleontology was announced. We learned there are fossil beds throughout 10,000 square miles of Eastern Oregon. The National Monument is 20 square miles of protected area. The John Day Fossil Beds in particular are very diverse. Six distinct ages ranging from 7 million to 44 million years ago can be found there. The fossil record is so reliable there that paleontologists around the world "are looking to this formation for correlation." <br />
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I'd learned in <u>Your Inner Fish</u> that lava beds were not good places to find fossils because the molten lava destroyed the beings it killed, and that former sea beds were good places to find fossils. In this case, it was volcanic activity that created these profuse fossil records, but it was mud flow that covered over and smothered everything, and since it was so fast, it was like a snapshot of all the living beings at one time, encased in mud which became rock.<br />
<br />
While Thomas Condon must certainly have kept a record of where he found fossils, these days paleontologists can keep notebooks with precise locations, times, and pictures printed on the spot. In this rich territory in Oregon, a paleontologist can find "an entirely new basin that no one has collected before."<br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/hoogstra/6068540373/" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;" title="IMG_5765_1 by hoogstra, on Flickr"><img alt="IMG_5765_1" height="300" src="http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6063/6068540373_bfaf93e6dc_b.jpg" width="400" /></a><br />
I can't recommend enough visiting this place as part of your visit to Eastern Oregon. It can't compare to the <a href="http://www.amnh.org/">American Museum of Natural History</a>, but it is chock full of information, and because of the unique fossil record of the area, has a wide range of fossils, post-dinosaurs. Wall murals depicting the animals and plants as they may have looked line the walls (well-done, not hokey as I remember museum visits from my childhood) and the exhibits are displayed as if on exposed rock. I took <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/hoogstra/sets/72157627491101438/with/6068540373/">a bunch of pictures to look at later</a> but there are <a href="http://www.nps.gov/joda/photosmultimedia/index.htm">plenty of photos</a> and other things to explore at the National Parks website. (I may have more description work to do with those photos of mine, so check back later.)<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/hoogstra/6069092852/" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;" title="IMG_5779_1 by hoogstra, on Flickr"><img alt="IMG_5779_1" height="640" src="http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6190/6069092852_3f1269ccfc_b.jpg" width="480" /></a></div>Heidihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01555381490834134232noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6168408.post-28568701921311229372011-10-12T10:39:00.000-07:002011-10-12T10:39:01.006-07:00Slow Read: Middlemarch Book 8 and Finale<a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/10316445-middlemarch?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_book" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="Middlemarch" height="197" src="http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51OULtvRfVL._SX106_.jpg" width="200" /></a><b>BOOK VIII. SUNSET AND SUNRISE. </b><br />
<b><br />
</b><br />
<b>CHAPTER LXXII.</b> <i>Full souls are double mirrors, making still An endless vista of fair things before, Repeating things behind.</i><br />
<blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 22px;"><i><span class="highlight" style="font-size: 1.16em; line-height: 1.3em;"> "I feel convinced that his conduct has not been guilty: I believe that people are almost always better than their neighbors think they are," said Dorothea. Some of her intensest experience in the last two years had set her mind strongly in opposition to any unfavorable construction of others; and for the first time she felt rather discontented with Mr. Farebrother.</span></i></span><br />
<form action="https://kindle.amazon.com/user_annotation_relation/delete_highlight" class="deleteHighlightForm" method="post" style="display: inline; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><div style="display: inline; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"></div></form></blockquote>Dorothea will be a champion for the buffeted Doctor. She also defies Sir James.<br />
<blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 18px; line-height: 22px;"><i>But Sir James Chettam was no longer the diffident and acquiescent suitor: he was the anxious brother-in-law, with a devout admiration for his sister, but with a constant alarm lest she should fall under some new illusion almost as bad as marrying Casaubon. He smiled much less; when he said "Exactly" it was more often an introduction to a dissentient opinion than in those submissive bachelor days; and Dorothea found to her surprise that she had to resolve not to be afraid of him--all the more because he was really her best friend. He disagreed with her now. "But, Dorothea," he said, remonstrantly, "you can't undertake to manage a man's life for him in that way. Lydgate must know-- at least he will soon come to know how he stands. If he can clear himself, he will. He must act for himself."</i></span></blockquote>I like Sir James, but I can't help but feel he is too unkind here. I guess he's more concerned for harm Dorothea might experience, than that a man's life could be ruined over something he didn't do. Or would his compassion allow him to let a man sink or swim in a pool full of sharks?<br />
<blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 18px; line-height: 22px;"><i>Besides, there is a man's character beforehand to speak for him." "But, my dear Mrs. Casaubon," said Mr. Farebrother, smiling gently at her ardor, "character is not cut in marble--it is not something solid and unalterable. It is something living and changing, and may become diseased as our bodies do." "Then it may be rescued and healed," said Dorothea "I should not be afraid of asking Mr. Lydgate to tell me the truth, that I might help him. Why should I be afraid?</i></span></blockquote>Whereas once Dorothea was innocent and passionate, insisting on a course that would inevitably be harmful, now she seems to be the only reasonable person due to that same passion tempered by experience. Why should she be afraid?<br />
<blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 18px; line-height: 22px;"><i>People glorify all sorts of bravery except the bravery they might show on behalf of their nearest neighbors." Dorothea's eyes had a moist brightness in them, and the changed tones of her voice roused her uncle, who began to listen. "It is true that a woman may venture on some efforts of sympathy which would hardly succeed if we men undertook them," said Mr. Farebrother, almost converted by Dorothea's ardor.</i></span></blockquote>I wonder if this is a key passage. Is this the difference between men and women in the public sphere? The difference between a savvy cleric and a saintly heart? Why would this kind of effort of sympathy be unlikely to succeed if men undertook them?<br />
<br />
<b>CHAPTER LXXIII. </b><i>Pity the laden one; this wandering woe May visit you and me.</i><br />
<br />
Lydgate mulls greatly, how to present himself?<br />
<blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 18px; line-height: 22px;"><i>He would not retreat before calumny, as if he submitted to it. He would face it to the utmost, and no act of his should show that he was afraid. It belonged to the generosity as well as defiant force of his nature that he resolved not to shrink from showing to the full his sense of obligation to Bulstrode. </i></span></blockquote><b>CHAPTER LXXIV</b>.<i> "Mercifully grant that we may grow aged together." --BOOK OF TOBIT: Marriage Prayer.</i><br />
<br />
How Middlemarch lets a wife know her place, thanks to her husband's actions:<br />
<blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 18px; line-height: 22px;"><i>Candor was one. To be candid, in Middlemarch phraseology, meant, to use an early opportunity of letting your friends know that you did not take a cheerful view of their capacity, their conduct, or their position; and a robust candor never waited to be asked for its opinion. Then, again, there was the love of truth--a wide phrase, but meaning in this relation, a lively objection to seeing a wife look happier than her husband's character warranted, or manifest too much satisfaction in her lot--the poor thing should have some hint given her that if she knew the truth she would have less complacency in her bonnet, and in light dishes for a supper-party. Stronger than all, there was the regard for a friend's moral improvement, sometimes called her soul, which was likely to be benefited by remarks tending to gloom, uttered with the accompaniment of pensive staring at the furniture and a manner implying that the speaker would not tell what was on her mind, from regard to the feelings of her hearer. On the whole, one might say that an ardent charity was at work setting the virtuous mind to make a neighbor unhappy for her good.</i></span></blockquote>Catty, dark, mean, this gossip thing. Cue Kristen Bell, Gossip Girl narrator. Kristen, read this for me, please? No one could do it more justice.<br />
<br />
Oddly, though, no one wished to tell Mrs. Bulstrode. They didn't want to be mean to her. And when she does find out, first she mourns, then she stands by her man. One of the most touching moments in the book, I think.<br />
<blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 18px; line-height: 22px;"><i>He sat with his eyes bent down, and as she went towards him she thought he looked smaller-- he seemed so withered and shrunken. A movement of new compassion and old tenderness went through her like a great wave, and putting one hand on his which rested on the arm of the chair, and the other on his shoulder, she said, solemnly but kindly-- "Look up, Nicholas."</i></span></blockquote>And in that simplicity, there is still complexity:<br />
<blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 18px; line-height: 22px;"><i>They could not yet speak to each other of the shame which she was bearing with him, or of the acts which had brought it down on them. His confession was silent, and her promise of faithfulness was silent. Open-minded as she was, she nevertheless shrank from the words which would have expressed their mutual consciousness, as she would have shrunk from flakes of fire. She could not say, "How much is only slander and false suspicion?" and he did not say, "I am innocent."</i></span></blockquote><br />
<b>CHAPTER LXXV.</b> <i>"Le sentiment de la fausset? des plaisirs pr?sents, et l'ignorance de la vanit? des plaisirs absents causent l'inconstance."--PASCAL.</i><br />
<blockquote><i>The sense of the falsity of present pleasures, and ignorance of the vanity of absent pleasures, cause inconstancy.</i></blockquote>Meanwhile, Rosamond courts Ladislaw.<br />
<blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 18px; line-height: 22px;"><i>She even fancied--what will not men and women fancy in these matters?-- that Will exaggerated his admiration for Mrs. Casaubon in order to pique herself. In this way poor Rosamond's brain had been busy before Will's departure. </i></span></blockquote><b>CHAPTER LXXVI.</b> <i>"To mercy, pity, peace, and love All pray in their distress, And to these virtues of delight, Return their thankfulness. . . . . . . For Mercy has a human heart, Pity a human face; And Love, the human form divine; And Peace, the human dress. --WILLIAM BLAKE: Songs of Innocence.</i><br />
<br />
Dorothea follows through:<br />
<blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 18px; line-height: 22px;"><i>"Not because there is no one to believe in you?" said Dorothea, pouring out her words in clearness from a full heart. "I know the unhappy mistakes about you. I knew them from the first moment to be mistakes. You have never done anything vile. You would not do anything dishonorable." It was the first assurance of belief in him that had fallen on Lydgate's ears. He drew a deep breath, and said, "Thank you." He could say no more: it was something very new and strange in his life that these few words of trust from a woman should be so much to him. "I beseech you to tell me how everything was," said Dorothea, fearlessly. "I am sure that the truth would clear you."</i></span></blockquote>She is like a balm on his heart. She even will help him with his marriage, though I wonder at the good that will do.<br />
<blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 18px; line-height: 22px;"><i> following the impulse to let Dorothea see deeper into the difficulty of his life, he said, "The fact is, this trouble has come upon her confusedly. We have not been able to speak to each other about it. ... "May I go and see her?" said Dorothea, eagerly. "Would she accept my sympathy? I would tell her that you have not been blamable before any one's judgment but your own. I would tell her that you shall be cleared in every fair mind. I would cheer her heart. Will you ask her if I may go to see her? I did see her once." "I am sure you may," said Lydgate, seizing the proposition with some hope. ".... I will not speak to her about your coming--that she may not connect it with my wishes at all."</i></span></blockquote><b>CHAPTER LXXVII.</b> <i>"And thus thy fall hath left a kind of blot, To mark the full-fraught man and best indued With some suspicion." --Henry V.</i><br />
<blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 18px; line-height: 22px;"><i>There was evidently some mental separation, some barrier to complete confidence which had arisen between this wife and the husband who had yet made her happiness a law to him. That was a trouble which no third person must directly touch. But Dorothea thought with deep pity of the loneliness which must have come upon Rosamond from the suspicions cast on her husband; and there would surely be help in the manifestation of respect for Lydgate and sympathy with her.</i></span></blockquote>Oh...if only Rosamond were as Dorothea imagines.<br />
<br />
<b>CHAPTER LXXVIII.</b> <i>"Would it were yesterday and I i' the grave, With her sweet faith above for monument" </i><br />
<br />
In which Rosamond makes a move for Will, who is thoroughly disgusted, and Dorothea happens upon them at just the wrong moment. Well, even though he hasn't been cleared in the eyes of his wife, Lydgate shines at what he does best.<br />
<blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 18px; line-height: 22px;"><i>"...Rosamond! has something agitated you?" Clinging to him she fell into hysterical sobbings and cries, and for the next hour he did nothing but soothe and tend her. He imagined that Dorothea had been to see her, and that all this effect on her nervous system, which evidently involved some new turning towards himself, was due to the excitement of the new impressions which that visit had raised. </i></span></blockquote><b>CHAPTER LXXIX.</b> <i>"Now, I saw in my dream, that just as they had ended their talk, they drew nigh to a very miry slough, that was in the midst of the plain; and they, being heedless, did both fall suddenly into the bog. The name of the slough was Despond."--BUNYAN.</i><br />
<blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 18px; line-height: 22px;"><i>We are on a perilous margin when we begin to look passively at our future selves, and see our own figures led with dull consent into insipid misdoing and shabby achievement. Poor Lydgate was inwardly groaning on that margin, and Will was arriving at it. It seemed to him this evening as if the cruelty of his outburst to Rosamond had made an obligation for him, and he dreaded the obligation: he dreaded Lydgate's unsuspecting good-will: he dreaded his own distaste for his spoiled life, which would leave him in motiveless levity.</i></span></blockquote>I wonder if any other of the men would have felt this obligation after a burst of cruelty. Mr. Garth perhaps. Would others have even realized how they were cruel? Not Sir James. Not Mr. Brooke. Mr. Farebrother wouldn't have got himself in that position: I think he'd see enough clues to avoid it.<br />
<br />
<b>CHAPTER LXXX.</b> <i>"Stern lawgiver! yet thou dost wear The Godhead's most benignant grace; Nor know we anything so fair As is the smile upon thy face; Flowers laugh before thee on their beds, And fragrance in thy footing treads; Thou dost preserve the Stars from wrong; And the most ancient Heavens, through thee, are fresh and strong. --WORDSWORTH: Ode to Duty. </i><br />
<br />
Ahh...some comic relief via Miss Henrietta Noble.<br />
<blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 18px; line-height: 22px;"><i>...when suddenly some inarticulate little sounds were heard which called everybody's attention. "Henrietta Noble," said Mrs. Farebrother, seeing her small sister moving about the furniture-legs distressfully, "what is the matter?" "I have lost my tortoise-shell lozenge-box. I fear the kitten has rolled it away," said the tiny old lady, involuntarily continuing her beaver-like notes. ...</i></span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 18px; line-height: 22px;">"Oh, if it is Ladislaw's present," said Mr. Farebrother, in a deep tone of comprehension, getting up and hunting. ..."That is an affair of the heart with my aunt," said Mr. Farebrother, smiling at Dorothea, as he reseated himself. "If Henrietta Noble forms an attachment to any one, Mrs. Casaubon," said his mother, emphatically,--"she is like a dog--she would take their shoes for a pillow and sleep the better." "Mr. Ladislaw's shoes, I would," said Henrietta Noble.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 18px; line-height: 22px;"> </span></i></blockquote>Dorothea resolves something in herself that night.<br />
<blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 18px; line-height: 22px;"><i>She was vigorous enough to have borne that hard night without feeling ill in body, beyond some aching and fatigue; but she had waked to a new condition: she felt as if her soul had been liberated from its terrible conflict; she was no longer wrestling with her grief, but could sit down with it as a lasting companion and make it a sharer in her thoughts.</i></span></blockquote><b>CHAPTER LXXXI. </b><i>"Du Erde warst auch diese Nacht bestandig, Und athmest neu erquickt zu meinen Fussen, Beginnest schon mit Lust mich zu umgeben, Zum regst und ruhrst ein kraftiges Reschliessen Zum hochsten Dasein immerfort zu streben. --Faust: 2r Theil.</i><br />
<br />
Google translate and free ebooks to the rescue again...Faust speaking:<br />
<i></i><br />
<blockquote><i>And thou, O Earth !—for nature still is true— </i><br />
<i>Didst, this night, of the common boon partake; </i><br />
<i>And, breathing in fresh vigour at my feet, </i><br />
<i>Already, with thy charms of new delight, </i><br />
<i>Dost in my heart the earnest wish awake </i><br />
<i>To strive towards Being's unascended height.</i></blockquote>Dorothea visits Rosamond, who, thinking others would be like herself, thinks Dorothea comes with a mean purpose. But Dorothea comes to heal.<br />
<blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 18px; line-height: 22px;"><i>"...And I have told Mr. Farebrother, and Mr. Brooke, and Sir James Chettam: they all believe in your husband. That will cheer you, will it not? That will give you courage?" Dorothea's face had become animated, and as it beamed on Rosamond very close to her, she felt something like bashful timidity before a superior, in the presence of this self-forgetful ardor. She said, with blushing embarrassment, "Thank you: you are very kind."</i></span></blockquote>And they share a moment. A rare true moment.<br />
<blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 18px; line-height: 22px;"><i>[Rosamond] withdrew the handkerchief with which she had been hiding her face, her eyes met Dorothea's as helplessly as if they had been blue flowers. What was the use of thinking about behavior after this crying? And Dorothea looked almost as childish, with the neglected trace of a silent tear. Pride was broken down between these two.</i></span></blockquote>And Rosamond gives Dorothea the gift of truth, that Will rejected her due to another woman, Dorothea.<br />
<blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 18px; line-height: 22px;"><i>Rosamond had delivered her soul under impulses which she had not known before. She had begun her confession under the subduing influence of Dorothea's emotion; and as she went on she had gathered the sense that she was repelling Will's reproaches, which were still like a knife-wound within her. </i></span></blockquote><blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 18px; line-height: 22px;"><i>... "Mrs. Lydgate and I have chatted a great deal, and it is time for me to go. I have always been accused of being immoderate and saying too much." She put out her hand to Rosamond, and they said an earnest, quiet good-by without kiss or other show of effusion: there had been between them too much serious emotion for them to use the signs of it superficially.</i></span></blockquote><b>CHAPTER LXXXII. </b><i>"My grief lies onward and my joy behind." --SHAKESPEARE: Sonnets.</i><br />
<br />
Will is devastated but...<br />
<blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 18px; line-height: 22px;"><i> But it is given to us sometimes even in our every-day life to witness the saving influence of a noble nature, the divine efficacy of rescue that may lie in a self-subduing act of fellowship. If Dorothea, after her night's anguish, had not taken that walk to Rosamond--why, she perhaps would have been a woman who gained a higher character for discretion, but it would certainly not have been as well for those three who were on one hearth in Lydgate's house at half-past seven that evening.</i></span></blockquote><b>CHAPTER LXXXIII.</b> <i>"And now good-morrow to our waking souls Which watch not one another out of fear; For love all love of other sights controls, And makes one little room, an everywhere." --DR. DONNE.</i><br />
<br />
Oh! Miss Noble again, with her tortoise-shell lozenge box from Will. She comes with a message from him for Dorothea. How cute, that the little old spinster would be the messenger, and brings the two together at last. Will takes her hand...<br />
<blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 18px; line-height: 22px;"><i>Still it was difficult to loose the hand, and Dorothea, withdrawing it in a confusion that distressed her, looked and moved away. "See how dark the clouds have become, and how the trees are tossed," she said, walking towards the window, yet speaking and moving with only a dim sense of what she was doing.</i></span></blockquote>Methinks it is an internal storm brewing as well.<br />
<blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 18px; line-height: 22px;"><i>"We may at least have the comfort of speaking to each other without disguise. Since I must go away--since we must always be divided--you may think of me as one on the brink of the grave." While he was speaking there came a vivid flash of lightning which lit each of them up for the other--and the light seemed to be the terror of a hopeless love. Dorothea darted instantaneously from the window; Will followed her, seizing her hand with a spasmodic movement; and so they stood, with their hands clasped, like two children, looking out on the storm, while the thunder gave a tremendous crack and roll above them, and the rain began to pour down. Then they turned their faces towards each other, with the memory of his last words in them, and they did not loose each other's hands.</i></span></blockquote>So classic...these days:<br />
<blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 18px; line-height: 22px;"><i>"...I meant to go away into silence, but I have not been able to do what I meant." "Don't be sorry," said Dorothea, in her clear tender tones. "I would rather share all the trouble of our parting." Her lips trembled, and so did his. It was never known which lips were the first to move towards the other lips; but they kissed tremblingly, and then they moved apart. <b>The rain was dashing against the window-panes as if an angry spirit were within it, and behind it was the great swoop of the wind; it was one of those moments in which both the busy and the idle pause with a certain awe.</b></i></span></blockquote>Cue big sigh.<br />
<br />
<b>CHAPTER LXXXIV.</b> <i>"Though it be songe of old and yonge, That I sholde be to blame, Theyrs be the charge, that spoke so large In hurtynge of my name." --The Not-Browne Mayde.</i><br />
<br />
And so they will be married, despite the despicable will, or because of it.<br />
<blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 18px; line-height: 22px;"><i>"Oh, there is usually a silent exception in such cases," said Mrs. Cadwallader. "The only wonder to me is, that any of you are surprised. You did nothing to hinder it. If you would have had Lord Triton down here to woo her with his philanthropy, he might have carried her off before the year was over. There was no safety in anything else. Mr. Casaubon had prepared all this as beautifully as possible. He made himself disagreeable--or it pleased God to make him so--and then he dared her to contradict him. It's the way to make any trumpery tempting, to ticket it at a high price in that way."</i></span></blockquote>What she said.<br />
<br />
<b>CHAPTER LIXXV.</b> <i>"Then went the jury out whose names were Mr. Blindman, Mr. No-good, Mr. Malice, Mr. Love-lust, Mr. Live-loose, Mr. Heady, Mr. High-mind, Mr. Enmity, Mr. Liar, Mr. Cruelty, Mr. Hate-light, Mr. Implacable, who every one gave in his private verdict against him among themselves, and afterwards unanimously concluded to bring him in guilty before the judge. And first among themselves, Mr. Blindman, the foreman, said, I see clearly that this man is a heretic. Then said Mr. No-good, Away with such a fellow from the earth! Ay, said Mr. Malice, for I hate the very look of him. Then said Mr. Love-lust, I could never endure him. Nor I, said Mr. Live-loose; for he would be always condemning my way. Hang him, hang him, said Mr. Heady. A sorry scrub, said Mr. High-mind. My heart riseth against him, said Mr. Enmity. He is a rogue, said Mr. Liar. Hanging is too good for him, said Mr. Cruelty. Let us despatch him out of the way said Mr. Hate-light. Then said Mr. Implacable, Might I have all the world given me, I could not be reconciled to him; therefore let us forthwith bring him in guilty of death." --Pilgrim's Progress.</i><br />
<br />
Pilgrim's Progress...never read it, and this doesn't make me want to.<br />
<br />
Mr. Bulstrode is done for. The sad part, Mrs. Bulstrode must be done for with him. This is what harsh judgments do...they slay the innocent as well as the guilty. No matter what, no matter who. But together, they manage to do some good, and arrange for Fred to take over the running of the Stone Court estate, the very estate he thought he might inherit.<br />
<br />
<b>CHAPTER LXXXVI.</b><i> "Le coeur se sature d'amour comme d'un sel divin qui le conserve; de la l'incorruptible adherence de ceux qui se sont aimes des l'aube de la vie, et la fraicheur des vielles amours prolonges. Il existe un embaumement d'amour. C'est de Daphnis et Chloe que sont faits Philemon et Baucis. Cette vieillesse la, ressemblance du soir avec l'aurore." --VICTOR HUGO: L'homme qui rit.</i><br />
<blockquote><i>"The heart is saturated with love as a divine salt that preserves it; of the incorruptible adherence of those who are like the dawn of life, and extenders freshness of the old loves. There is an embalming of love. It's Daphnis and Chloe are made as Philemon and Baucis. This old age the likeness of the evening with the dawn. "- VICTOR HUGO: The Man Who Laughs.</i></blockquote>And Mary indeed ends up with Fred. Poor Mr. Farebrother.<br />
<br />
<b>FINALE.</b><br />
<blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 22px;"><i><span class="highlight" style="font-size: 1.16em; line-height: 1.3em;">Marriage, which has been the bourne of so many narratives, is still a great beginning, as it was to Adam and Eve, who kept their honeymoon in Eden, but had their first little one among the thorns and thistles of the wilderness. It is still the beginning of the home epic--the gradual conquest or irremediable loss of that complete union which makes the advancing years a climax, and age the harvest of sweet memories in common.</span></i></span><br />
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We get to find out what happens to everyone! I like that part at the end of movies...so dissatisfying to be left wondering.<br />
<blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 18px; line-height: 22px;"><i>When Fred was riding home on winter evenings he had a pleasant vision beforehand of the bright hearth in the wainscoted parlor, and was sorry for other men who could not have Mary for their wife; especially for Mr. Farebrother. "He was ten times worthier of you than I was," Fred could now say to her, magnanimously. "To be sure he was," Mary answered; "and for that reason he could do better without me. But you--I shudder to think what you would have been-- a curate in debt for horse-hire and cambric pocket-handkerchiefs!" </i></span></blockquote><blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 18px; line-height: 22px;"><i>Lydgate's hair never became white. He died when he was only fifty, leaving his wife and children provided for by a heavy insurance on his life. He had gained an excellent practice, alternating, according to the season, between London and a Continental bathing-place; having written a treatise on Gout, a disease which has a good deal of wealth on its side. His skill was relied on by many paying patients, but he always regarded himself as a failure: he had not done what he once meant to do. His acquaintances thought him enviable to have so charming a wife, and nothing happened to shake their opinion.</i></span></blockquote>At least one good impulse from Rosamond over the years:<br />
<blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 18px; line-height: 22px;"><i>Why then had he chosen her? It was a pity he had not had Mrs. Ladislaw, whom he was always praising and placing above her. And thus the conversation ended with the advantage on Rosamond's side. But it would be unjust not to tell, that she never uttered a word in depreciation of Dorothea, keeping in religious remembrance the generosity which had come to her aid in the sharpest crisis of her life.</i></span></blockquote>And Dorothea...<br />
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<blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 22px;"><i><span class="highlight" style="font-size: 1.16em; line-height: 1.3em;"> Still, she never repented that she had given up position and fortune to marry Will Ladislaw, and he would have held it the greatest shame as well as sorrow to him if she had repented. They were bound to each other by a love stronger than any impulses which could have marred it.</span></i><form action="https://kindle.amazon.com/user_annotation_relation/delete_highlight" class="deleteHighlightForm" method="post" style="display: inline; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><div style="display: inline; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"></div><span class="deleteHighlight"><button class="textSubmit" name="delete" style="background-color: transparent; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-top-width: 0px; color: #004b9a; cursor: pointer; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 0.92em; height: 1.5em; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; overflow-x: visible; overflow-y: visible; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-align: left; width: auto;" type="submit"><span class="bullet" style="color: #999999;"> </span></button></span></form></span></blockquote><br />
<blockquote><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 18px; line-height: 22px;">Certainly those determining acts of her life were not ideally beautiful. </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 18px; line-height: 22px;">They were the mixed result of young and noble impulse struggling amidst the conditions of an imperfect social state, in which great feelings will often take the aspect of error, and great faith the aspect of illusion. For there is no creature whose inward being is so strong that it is not greatly determined by what lies outside it. A new Theresa will hardly have the opportunity of reforming a conventual life, any more than a new Antigone will spend her heroic piety in daring all for the sake of a brother's burial: the medium in which their ardent deeds took shape is forever gone. But we insignificant people with our daily words and acts are preparing the lives of many Dorotheas, some of which may present a far sadder sacrifice than that of the Dorothea whose story we know. ...</span></i></blockquote><blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 18px; line-height: 22px;"><i>But the effect of her being on those around her was incalculably diffusive: for the growing good of the world is partly dependent on unhistoric acts; and that things are not so ill with you and me as they might have been, is half owing to the number who lived faithfully a hidden life, and rest in unvisited tombs. [The End]</i></span></blockquote>Must go back and look at those beginning lines about Theresa...and maybe find out more about Theresa.<br />
<br />
Must think about "unhistoric acts."Heidihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01555381490834134232noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6168408.post-18607141430922982742011-10-11T09:07:00.000-07:002011-10-11T23:01:03.914-07:00Eastern Oregon Trip: Kam Wah Chung Museum<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/hoogstra/6069003950/" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;" title="IMG_5670_1 by hoogstra, on Flickr"><img alt="IMG_5670_1" height="480" src="http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6071/6069003950_5da7c589ca_b.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br />
Sheesh, I've been busy. Here it is almost two months later and I'm almost done with my travel chronicle. After a leisurely morning, breakfast in our room, packing and checkout by noon (love that noon checkout time), we left Baker City on Oregon HWY 26 East. If we stayed on 26 it would get us back to Portland, but our destiny took us north sooner than that.<br />
<div><br />
</div><div><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/hoogstra/6069006430/" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;" title="IMG_5686_1 by hoogstra, on Flickr"><img alt="IMG_5686_1" height="240" src="http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6071/6069006430_d01f3199fe_b.jpg" width="320" /></a>First stop, the <a href="http://oregonstateparkstrust.org/OurWork/EasternOR/kamwahchung">Kam Wah Chung Museum</a>. Ever since we read <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1582431892/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=adventinmulti-20&linkCode=as2&camp=217145&creative=399369&creativeASIN=1582431892">Midnight at the Dragon Cafe</a><img alt="" border="0" height="1" src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=adventinmulti-20&l=as2&o=1&a=1582431892&camp=217145&creative=399369" style="border: none !important; margin: 0px !important;" width="1" /> for <a href="http://www.multcolib.org/books/lists/everybodyreads.html">Everybody Reads</a> in 2007, I've been interested in visiting <a href="http://www.cityofjohnday.com/PhotoGallery/tabid/5089/language/en-US/Default.aspx">John Day</a>, and viewing the encapsulated history of <a href="http://www.oregonencyclopedia.org/entry/view/ing_doc_hay_1862_1952_/">Doc Hay</a> in this museum. Included in the events for Everybody Reads were lectures on the history of Chinese and other Asians in Oregon. More recently, OPB's show <a href="http://www.oregonencyclopedia.org/entry/view/ing_doc_hay_1862_1952_/">Oregon Experience</a> covered the history of the museum and Ing Hay and his business partner <a href="http://www.oregonencyclopedia.org/entry/view/lung_on_1863_1940_/">Lung On</a>. <a href="http://watch.opb.org/video/1207317935/">Video here</a>. It happened to air again before our trip, and my sweetie and I watched it together.<br />
<br />
It turned out we couldn't visit the museum except in a guided tour, as too much damage was done when too many unescorted people wandered in the small space. We were lucky to arrive just a little before a tour...just enough time to use the restroom, buy a piece of Chinese calligraphy art, and view the displays in the visitor center.<br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/hoogstra/6069007978/" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;" title="IMG_5699_1 by hoogstra, on Flickr"><img alt="IMG_5699_1" height="240" src="http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6081/6069007978_4057e796ea_b.jpg" width="320" /></a>In 1862 there was a gold rush in Oregon. At the same time the Civil War was preventing an influx of workers, so foreign workers were relied on to fill the gaps. As I mentioned before, only men were allowed. Doc Hay and Lung On left their families behind.<br />
<br />
In 1882, no one but scholars were allowed to enter the country from China. After a certain point, even if they wanted to, the two men didn't dare return to China because they might not be allowed back. They remained in their adopted home of Oregon. Doc Hay wrote letters faithfully and sent money, and according to our guide, appeared to love his wife, though it was a traditional arranged marriage. Lung On, though, was apparently glad to leave his arranged marriage. <br />
<br />
I found myself wondering again, what about their sex life? Did they have any once they moved to the U.S.? Did they dare? Could they have been lovers? If that were the case this could never have been hinted at for the history books. I like to think they were partners in more than the business sense, hiding their companionship in plain sight. I also wonder if the sexual revolution has indeed made us more sexualized, and if it was entirely common for unattached women as well as men simply to have no sex life. Lung On liked to gamble, and both liked to host a cadre of visitors. I can imagine them smoking, tossing coins, tiles, cards, shooting the shit, laughing at low humor, easing the unexpressed libido through innuendo and crude jokes.<br />
<br />
In 1921 electricity arrived in John Day, and Ing Hay got it the first day. One later addition was a bedroom for Lung On, with its own entrance. This way Lung On wasn't disturbed when Doc Hay received a late night patient, and Doc Hay wasn't disturbed when Lung On returned from late nights spent drinking and gambling.<br />
<br />
The grocery was closed down when Lung On died, and the business closed completely in 1948 when Doc Hay could no longer run his healing business. After his death, the building was closed completely. When the building was opened back up in 1969, they found items from the twenties to the forties. They also found Kentucky bourbon under the floorboards dated 1912-1918...so apparently this catch-all business that served both Chinese and whites also was prepared to be a speakeasy, or provide the speakeasy's liquor.<br />
<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/hoogstra/6069019332/" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" title="Erhu: Chinese violin by hoogstra, on Flickr"><img alt="Erhu: Chinese violin" height="320" src="http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6190/6069019332_bf3f46137a_b.jpg" width="240" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Erhu, or Chinese violin, on the right</td></tr>
</tbody></table>There were pasted red papers with Chinese writing on the walls. I'm guessing this had something to do with New Year's celebrations.<br />
<br />
These two men were the only Chinese to remain buried in the town. Everyone else had their remains sent back to their homeland as their tradition enjoined. Lung On didn't want the job, but he was the one who would dig up the bones and send them back to China. Doc Hay was buried with a Mason funeral.<br />
<br />
Altars graced every room.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
More <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/hoogstra/sets/72157627490894426/with/6069022508/">details and photos here</a>.<br />
<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/hoogstra/6069010020/" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;" title="altar detail by hoogstra, on Flickr"><img alt="altar detail" height="480" src="http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6080/6069010020_8cd33f5752_b.jpg" width="640" /></a></div></div>Heidihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01555381490834134232noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6168408.post-66266681431640021682011-10-10T18:10:00.000-07:002011-10-10T18:10:03.858-07:00Slow Read: Middlemarch Book 7<a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/31470.Middlemarch?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_book" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="Middlemarch: A Study of Provincial Life (Broadview Editions)" height="320" src="http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1168276724m/31470.jpg" width="212" /></a><b>BOOK VII. TWO TEMPTATIONS. </b><br />
I presume the two temptations are a continuation of the story of the widow and the wife. <br />
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<b>CHAPTER LXIII.</b> <i>These little things are great to little man.--GOLDSMITH.</i><br />
<blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 18px; line-height: 22px;"><i>Mr. Farebrother noticed that Lydgate seemed bored, and that Mr. Vincy spoke as little as possible to his son-in-law. Rosamond was perfectly graceful and calm, and only a subtle observation such as the Vicar had not been roused to bestow on her would have perceived the total absence of that interest in her husband's presence which a loving wife is sure to betray, even if etiquette keeps her aloof from him.</i></span></blockquote>Poor Mr. Farebrother. Is he who notices the subtle details of the relationships of others doomed to have no intimate relationships for himself?<br />
<blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 18px; line-height: 22px;"><i>"Ah, there's enormous patience wanted with the way of the world. But it is the easier for a man to wait patiently when he has friends who love him, and ask for nothing better than to help him through, so far as it lies in their power." "Oh yes," said Lydgate, in a careless tone, changing his attitude and looking at his watch. "People make much more of their difficulties than they need to do." He knew as distinctly as possible that this was an offer of help to himself from Mr. Farebrother, and he could not bear it. So strangely determined are we mortals, that, after having been long gratified with the sense that he had privately done the Vicar a service, the suggestion that the Vicar discerned his need of a service in return made him shrink into unconquerable reticence.</i></span></blockquote>Ah, the control. For some it is easier to dispense help rather than receive. To receive help means one is not in control and on top of things. To give help means others are obligated to you, to receive help means you are obligated to others. I don't think that bothers Lydgate so much as that his life is out of control, but if he can take care of it himself he maintains the illusion of control.<br />
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<b>CHAPTER LXIV.</b> <i>1st Gent. Where lies the power, there let the blame lie too. 2d Gent. Nay, power is relative; you cannot fright The coming pest with border fortresses, Or catch your carp with subtle argument. All force is twain in one: cause is not cause Unless effect be there; and action's self Must needs contain a passive. So command Exists but with obedience."</i><br />
<br />
Who has the power? And even if they have the power, it cannot exist without those who are obedient. So do the obedient ones have the power, as without their passivity, the power could not exist?<br />
<blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 18px; line-height: 22px;"><i>It was because Lydgate writhed under the idea of getting his neck beneath this vile yoke that he had fallen into a bitter moody state which was continually widening Rosamond's alienation from him. After the first disclosure about the bill of sale, he had made many efforts to draw her into sympathy with him about possible measures for narrowing their expenses, and with the threatening approach of Christmas his propositions grew more and more definite.</i></span></blockquote>It appears Rosamond has the power, and Lydgate gives it to her. She would go to London, a pie in the sky idea, but there's no getting around her will.<br />
<blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 18px; line-height: 22px;"><i>"To do what? What is the use of my leaving my work in Middlemarch to go where I have none? We should be just as penniless elsewhere as we are here," said Lydgate still more angrily. "If we are to be in that position it will be entirely your own doing, Tertius," said Rosamond, turning round to speak with the fullest conviction.</i></span></blockquote>While we, the reader, can see that she had a big hand in it with her spending on her trousseau, no one in the book, that I can remember, tells Rosamond she needs to take responsibility.<br />
<blockquote><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 18px; font-weight: normal; line-height: 22px;"><i>He had long ago made up his mind to what he thought was her negative character--her want of sensibility, which showed itself in disregard both of his specific wishes and of his general aims. The first great disappointment had been borne: the tender devotedness and docile adoration of the ideal wife must be renounced, and life must be taken up on a lower stage of expectation, as it is by men who have lost their limbs.</i></span></b></blockquote>Rather than talk about this, Lydgate bears it all silently as his lot. What he thinks is her negative character is her stubborn willfulness. He doesn't get that she willfully does what she does, and that she has no respect for him. I wonder if the mere case of his falling in love with her due to her distress would make this inevitable.<br />
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<b>CHAPTER LXV.</b> <i>"One of us two must bowen douteless, And, sith a man is more reasonable Than woman is, ye [men] moste be suffrable. --CHAUCER: Canterbury Tales.</i><br />
<br />
This is about the power again...since one must bow before the other, and a man will be more reasonable, he must bow before the unreasonable woman? Or he's operating on a different system than she is, so he gets the shorter end? This seems to be the case with Tertius and Rosamond. He shouldn't underestimate her.<br />
<blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 18px; line-height: 22px;"><i> Lydgate paused in his movements, looked at her again, and said, with biting severity-- "Will this be enough to convince you of the harm you may do by secret meddling? Have you sense enough to recognize now your incompetence to judge and act for me--to interfere with your ignorance in affairs which it belongs to me to decide on?"</i></span></blockquote>Lydgate shouldn't consider Rosamond incompetent. That seems more benign than she deserves. She wouldn't care about her ignorance, she thinks she can make things happen the way she wills.<br />
<blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 18px; line-height: 22px;"><i>Lydgate flung himself into a chair, feeling checkmated. What place was there in her mind for a remonstrance to lodge in? He laid down his hat, flung an arm over the back of his chair, and looked down for some moments without speaking.</i></span></blockquote>Darn right he's checkmated. <br />
<blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 18px; line-height: 22px;"><i>"It is so very hard to be disgraced here among all the people we know, and to live in such a miserable way. I wish I had died with the baby." She spoke and wept with that gentleness which makes such words and tears omnipotent over a loving-hearted man. Lydgate drew his chair near to hers and pressed her delicate head against his cheek with his powerful tender hand. He only caressed her; he did not say anything; for what was there to say?</i></span></blockquote>And her conquest is complete.<br />
<br />
<b>CHAPTER LXVI.</b> <i>" 'Tis one thing to be tempted, Escalus, Another thing to fall." --Measure for Measure.</i><br />
<blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 18px; line-height: 22px;"><i>Some of that twice-blessed mercy was always with Lydgate in his work at the Hospital or in private houses, serving better than any opiate to quiet and sustain him under his anxieties and his sense of mental degeneracy. Mr. Farebrother's suspicion as to the opiate was true, however. </i></span></blockquote>Will Dr. Lydgate fall from this? I find it hard to believe. Is this one of the two temptations?<br />
<br />
And Fred? Is gambling to be his temptation again? He had...<br />
<blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 18px; line-height: 22px;"><i>ten pounds which he meant to reserve for himself from his half-year's salary (having before him the pleasure of carrying thirty to Mrs. Garth when Mary was likely to be come home again)-- he had those ten pounds in his mind as a fund from which he might risk something, if there were a chance of a good bet.</i></span></blockquote>Nope, not Fred, but Lydgate, gambling.<br />
<blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 18px; line-height: 22px;"><i>Fred felt a shock greater than he could quite account for by the vague knowledge that Lydgate was in debt, and that his father had refused to help him; and his own inclination to enter into the play was suddenly checked. It was a strange reversal of attitudes: Fred's blond face and blue eyes, usually bright and careless, ready to give attention to anything that held out a promise of amusement, looking involuntarily grave and almost embarrassed as if by the sight of something unfitting; while Lydgate, who had habitually an air of self-possessed strength, and a certain meditativeness that seemed to lie behind his most observant attention, was acting, watching, speaking with that excited narrow consciousness which reminds one of an animal with fierce eyes and retractile claws.</i></span></blockquote>And Mr. Farebrother seals the deal of Fred's reformation.<br />
<blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 18px; line-height: 22px;"><i>Perhaps Mr. Farebrother's might be concentrated into a single shrug and one little speech. "To think of the part one little woman can play in the life of a man, so that to renounce her may be a very good imitation of heroism, and to win her may be a discipline!"</i></span></blockquote><b>CHAPTER LXVII. </b><i>Now is there civil war within the soul: Resolve is thrust from off the sacred throne By clamorous Needs, and Pride the grand-vizier Makes humble compact, plays the supple part Of envoy and deft-tongued apologist For hungry rebels.</i><br />
<br />
Lydgate asks for Bulstrode's help with his money owed. He is declined.<br />
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<b>CHAPTER LXVIII. </b><i>"What suit of grace hath Virtue to put on If Vice shall wear as good, and do as well? If Wrong, if Craft, if Indiscretion Act as fair parts with ends as laudable? Which all this mighty volume of events The world, the universal map of deeds, Strongly controls, and proves from all descents, That the directest course still best succeeds. For should not grave and learn'd Experience That looks with the eyes of all the world beside, And with all ages holds intelligence, Go safer than Deceit without a guide! --DANIEL: Musophilus.</i><br />
<br />
Gah, these old wordings can be difficult to interpret. To think that once upon a time I read the original Chaucer and apparently understood it. This chapter is about Bulstrode...that gives me a clue. Ahh. His fortune begun in vice, in the end, he will get his, even though he wore the suit of virtue, to cover up, or repent, of his ill-gotten beginnings.<br />
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<b>CHAPTER LXIX.</b> <i>"If thou hast heard a word, let it die with thee." --Ecclesiasticus.</i><br />
<br />
While Bulstrode hoped Raffles spoke to no one else, the man did, and consequently Mr. Garth quits.<br />
<blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 18px; line-height: 22px;"><i>"No," said Caleb, lifting his hand deprecatingly; "I am ready to believe better, when better is proved. I rob you of no good chance. As to speaking, I hold it a crime to expose a man's sin unless I'm clear it must be done to save the innocent. That is my way of thinking, Mr. Bulstrode, and what I say, I've no need to swear. I wish you good-day."</i></span></blockquote>In other news, Lydgate seems to have hit bottom.<br />
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<b>CHAPTER LXX.</b> <i>Our deeds still travel with us from afar, And what we have been makes us what we are."</i><br />
<br />
The chapter in which Bulstrode repents of his treatment of Lydgate, and he somehow needs to shut up Raffles. Dr. Lydgate treats Raffles (with no knowledge of the true connection to Bulstrode) and Bulstrode gets instructions on the man's care. The innocent view: Bulstrode repents and helps Lydgate with his money problems, and the mistake with the instructions is just a mistake. The guilty view: Bulstrode bribes, and Lydgate looks the other way. The truth: somewhere in between, with a bit of unconscious desires mixed in.<br />
<br />
<b>CHAPTER LXXI.</b> <i>Clown. . . . 'Twas in the Bunch of Grapes, where, indeed, you have a delight to sit, have you not? Froth. I have so: because it is an open room, and good for winter. Clo. Why, very well then: I hope here be truths. --Measure for Measure.</i><br />
<br />
Hmmm. The second quote from this Shakespeare play...one I have not read. Oh well. Maybe I'll get a chance to read it before I read <u>Middlemarch</u> again someday. If gossip is involved, little chance of truths here.<br />
<blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 18px; line-height: 22px;"><i>Hence, in spite of the negative as to any direct sign of guilt in relation to the death at Stone Court, Mr. Hawley's select party broke up with the sense that the affair had "an ugly look." But this vague conviction of indeterminable guilt, which was enough to keep up much head-shaking and biting innuendo even among substantial professional seniors, had for the general mind all the superior power of mystery over fact.</i></span></blockquote>You can't get more public than a town meeting. So were the two temptations more about these men than about Fred or Rosamond? If they yielded to temptation, it doesn't appear to have been entirely conscious...and if unconscious, can it be said they did yield to temptation? And does it matter if the public has tried them in the gossip and found them guilty?<br />
<blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 18px; line-height: 22px;"><i>Lydgate felt sure there was not strength enough in him to walk away without support. What could he do? He could not see a man sink close to him for want of help. He rose and gave his arm to Bulstrode, and in that way led him out of the room; yet this act, which might have been one of gentle duty and pure compassion, was at this moment unspeakably bitter to him. It seemed as if he were putting his sign-manual to that association of himself with Bulstrode, of which he now saw the full meaning as it must have presented itself to other minds. He now felt the conviction that this man who was leaning tremblingly on his arm, had given him the thousand pounds as a bribe, and that somehow the treatment of Raffles had been tampered with from an evil motive.</i></span></blockquote>Lydgate seals his fate as an accomplice, yet as a doctor he still cannot turn away from a man in distress.Heidihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01555381490834134232noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6168408.post-61638299916064186632011-10-09T23:39:00.000-07:002011-10-10T02:18:40.959-07:00He's a Big Cat, I Cannot Lie<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/hoogstra/6229375933/" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;" title="Sandy by hoogstra, on Flickr"><img alt="Sandy" height="300" src="http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6211/6229375933_95ccc877c8_b.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>My cats are big cats, and Sandy is the larger. Like me, he believes in conservation of movement. If he can reach it without having to get up, he will not get up. He doesn't like to get into things and get in trouble, like Zigzag does. I play with him with a variety of toys. Together they do that cat chase thing, jumping over tables, just one paw touching, flying over chairs and the couch, zipping in a second from one end of the room to the other. So while Sandy would lie down rather than come to you, he does play and get plenty of activity.<br />
<br />
I bring this up because when I took them for their annual checkup last month, their vet tried to scare me into thinking I needed to put them on diet food. Last year, she wanted me to limit their dry food, and only let them have the food for a limited time each day. Both visits, she said, "These cats are big-boned and tend to weigh more, and you have to be careful about them getting overweight."<br />
<br />
I think this is a sad example of our societal eating disorder. Excess weight is so scary, such a bad bad thing, that pets are put on diets before they've even reached full adult age. They aren't even overweight yet, but in the attempt to start those good eating habits, I as their caretaker am told to limit their calories or the big bad will happen. If they are big-boned and genetically prone to weigh more, why this fear of letting them weigh more?<br />
<br />
I told her I'd tried the year before to separate and limit their food, but separating them made them too anxious. She interrupted me, "You mean it made you anxious? You couldn't listen to their meowing?" I stopped, confused. Oh, she thinks I couldn't bear to make them go without food. "Nooo... they wouldn't eat because they were anxious when I tried to separate them." I don't think she really heard me, as I suspect she looks at me and thinks I am transferring my own "eating disorder" to my cats, while I likewise think she is putting this irrational fear of weight that Americans have onto my cats. Don't get me wrong, I think she's a great vet, except for this. She did say, check it out, do your research, make your own choice. Perhaps she is paid to hawk their products, but doesn't necessarily believe in them.<br />
<br />
She handed me a brochure for <a href="http://www.purinaveterinarydiets.com/Product/OMOverweightManagementCatFood.aspx">Purina Overweight Management </a>food with valuable coupons. So just like the societal eating disorder for humans, the one for animals is brought to you by those who would make money over it...much more money than for their regular food. Sorry, but I'm not buying it. I don't trust Purina. I've always bought good health food for cats, and Purina doesn't qualify. This brochure had a "success" story about a cat that lost a bunch of weight and was so much happier. Not a word about ingredients, about nutritional information, but only about weight loss and calories. So I looked it up. First ingredient? Corn gluten meal. Second? Wheat gluten. Finally, the fourth ingredient is poultry by-product meal. Hey, I'm a vegetarian, but I don't expect my cats to be!<br />
<br />
Compare that to my Trader Joe's brand, first ingredient chicken meal. Even that is not quite as good as <a href="http://www.chickensoupforthepetloverssoul.com/">the dry food</a> <a href="http://www.a-house-full-of-cats.com/bestcatfood.html">these cat experts found</a>, in which the first ingredient is unadulterated chicken. My vet did say that cats don't get overweight if they eat only wet food. When my kittens found me, I wanted the best for them. I tried giving them only wet food. For a while, they really liked it. Then they started eating less, and they started eating my books, eating electrical cords, shoelaces, anything plastic. They wanted to chew and crunch. They were weaned on dry food with a little bit of wet, and that is what they prefer.<br />
<br />
So within the first year, I broke down and started buying dry food, but only the good stuff. I looked at ash content (the lower the better), at protein percentage (the higher the better, obviously) and moisture content. I used to swear by Science Diet, but <a href="http://www.benchandfield.com/products.php?cPath=46">Bench and Field Holistic Natural</a>, at Trader Joe's, stacks up even better. It even has blueberries in it. TJ's now has its own brand of healthy cat food as well, and I can't really see a difference, except the first is in a star shape, and the second, a saucer shape.<br />
<br />
It took a while for the cats even to be interested in wet food again. They wouldn't touch Trader Joe's brand. I started getting a variety, small cans only, and only the healthy brands. If it was the same two days in a row, they wouldn't eat it. <br />
<br />
I was curious, just how "overweight" is my sweet boy Sandy? I didn't know when I adopted them that they are part <a href="http://www.pictures-of-cats.org/maine-coon-cats.html">Maine Coon</a>, as their mom was slender and small-boned, normal hair. According to the <a href="http://www.pictures-of-cats.org/largest-domestic-cat-breed.html">chart on this web page</a>, the average weight of a Maine Coon is 16 lbs. Male cats can range from 15-25 lbs. It seems my Sandy could be just above average weight, with his big bones, yet I'm supposed to start depriving him of calories, and limiting how much food he gets. Zigzag is currently 12.8 lbs, and Sandy, 17.0.<br />
<br />
Rather than buy a cat food that bulks up by adding grains that cats aren't able to digest (is this weight management via adverse food reactions?), I'm going to continue to give my cats all the dry food they want, the stuff that at least starts its ingredients with a form of chicken. I've started giving them a small can to share morning and evening, instead of just evening, and they are liking that. They also seem to like the food more with the addition of probiotic powder (oh...another Purina product). I'm figuring, more wet food means they will naturally eat less dry food. <br />
<br />
While I researched, I discovered according to some it actually is good for cats to be able to nibble unhindered, and that is better done with dry food, as the wet food will go bad. I knew too much ash content is bad, but didn't know why. It has to do with <a href="http://maureen-k-fleury.suite101.com/ash-content-in-cat-food-a14713">urinary tract disease</a>. Regular grazing, rather than segregated amounts of food, keeps the pH level of the urine from fluctuating too much.<br />
<br />
All of that to say, I'm sure I'm doing the right thing for my cats. <br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/hoogstra/6229374539/" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" title="Zigzag shows his belly by hoogstra, on Flickr"><img alt="Zigzag shows his belly" height="480" src="http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6060/6229374539_97f35c370e_b.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Zigzag shows his belly, Sandy looks on.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>Heidihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01555381490834134232noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6168408.post-26825037546069991542011-10-04T23:44:00.000-07:002011-10-05T02:32:28.318-07:00Slow Read: Middlemarch Book 6It was my plan to be reading Book 8 this week. I was a book behind last week, but now I am indeed on the last book of this large tome, though I am still catching up with the blogging part.<br />
<br />
In my search for annotations which might include translations, I found <a href="http://academic.brooklyn.cuny.edu/english/melani/novel_19c/websites.html#eliot">this list of websites on Eliot</a>. I may want to visit it when I am done with the book. Soon now, soon. I found the translation, incidentally, by first using Google Translate, and then searching for particular words in the particular book in Google Books. Ahh, isn't life grand these days? (So yes, these blogs take me a little while, as it's not just about reflecting and writing.)<br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/750821.Middlemarch?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_book" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="Middlemarch (Penguin Classics)" height="320" src="http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1178030971m/750821.jpg" width="200" /></a><b>BOOK VI. THE WIDOW AND THE WIFE.</b><br />
<b><br />
</b><br />
<b>CHAPTER LIV.</b> <i>"Negli occhi porta la mia donna Amore; Per che si fa gentil eio ch'ella mira: Ov'ella passa, ogni uom ver lei si gira, E cui saluta fa tremar lo core. Sicche, bassando il viso, tutto smore, E d'ogni suo difetto allor sospira: Fuggon dinanzi a lei Superbia ed Ira: Aiutatemi, donne, a farle onore. Ogni dolcezza, ogni pensiero umile Nasee nel core a chi parlar la sente; Ond' e beato chi prima la vide. Quel ch'ella par quand' un poco sorride, Non si pub dicer, ne tener a mente, Si e nuovo miracolo gentile." --DANTE: la Vita Nuova.</i><br />
<br />
Translation:<br />
<blockquote>My lady carries love within her eyes<br />
All that she looks on is made pleasanter <br />
Upon her path men turn to gaze at her <br />
He whom she greeteth feels his heart to rise <br />
And droops his troubled visage full of sighs <br />
And of his evil heart is then aware <br />
Hate loves and pride becomes a worshipper <br />
E women help to praise her in somewise <br />
Humbleness and the hope that hopeth well <br />
By speech of hers into the mind are brought <br />
And who beholds is blessed oftenwhiles <br />
The look she hath when she a little smiles <br />
Cannot be said nor holden in the thought <br />
Tis such a new and gracious miracle. <i>Dante's <a href="http://books.google.com/books?id=_C9dAAAAMAAJ&dq=dante%20la%20vita&pg=PA36-IA1#v=onepage&q=pride&f=false">The New Life</a></i></blockquote>Is this saying all a man needs is the love of a good woman?<br />
<blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 18px; line-height: 23px;"><i>but to an aunt who does not recognize her infant nephew as Bouddha, and has nothing to do for him but to admire, his behavior is apt to appear monotonous, and the interest of watching him exhaustible. This possibility was quite hidden from Celia, who felt that Dorothea's childless widowhood fell in quite prettily with the birth of little Arthur (baby was named after Mr. Brooke).</i></span></blockquote>This is the second time Celia's baby is referred to as a Bouddha, the first referenced hair, or perhaps the lack of it, I wasn't sure. Certainly, he appears to be meant to provide comic relief.<br />
<blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 18px; line-height: 23px;"><i>"Good God!" Will burst out passionately, rising, with his hat still in his hand, and walking away to a marble table, where he suddenly turned and leaned his back against it. The blood had mounted to his face and neck, and he looked almost angry. It had seemed to him as if they were like two creatures slowly turning to marble in each other's presence, while their hearts were conscious and their eyes were yearning. But there was no help for it.</i></span></blockquote>The two appear to be falling in love, for all the wrong reasons as it often seems of characters in this book. Or is this how we always fall in love? Is there no escape from the blindness of our own projections? These two see each other, yet do not. They don't know the full story, and respond to another story in the other. I think nowadays there is a help for it. There is the possibility of radical honesty. There is the possibility of speaking truth in intimacy without judgement, without censorship.<br />
<br />
<br />
<b>CHAPTER LV. </b><i>Hath she her faults? I would you had them too. They are the fruity must of soundest wine; Or say, they are regenerating fire Such as hath turned the dense black element Into a crystal pathway for the sun. If youth is the season of hope, it is often so only in the sense that our elders are hopeful about us; for no age is so apt as youth to think its emotions, partings, and resolves are the last of their kind. Each crisis seems final, simply because it is new. </i><br />
<i> We are told that the oldest inhabitants in Peru do not cease to be agitated by the earthquakes, but they probably see beyond each shock, and reflect that there are plenty more to come.</i><br />
<br />
The Widow: Dorothea pines for Will Ladislaw, now especially that he is forbidden. Celia carries the idea to Sir James that Dorothea thinks never to marry again. This fits his view of widows, even though she's a young widow.<br />
<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.tudorplace.com.ar/images/Wotton,Henry.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="200" src="http://www.tudorplace.com.ar/images/Wotton,Henry.jpg" width="181" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Sir Henry Wotton</td></tr>
</tbody></table><b>CHAPTER LVI.</b> <i>"How happy is he born and taught That serveth not another's will; Whose armor is his honest thought, And simple truth his only skill! . . . . . . . This man is freed from servile bands Of hope to rise or fear to fall; Lord of himself though not of lands; And having nothing yet hath all." --<a href="http://www.tudorplace.com.ar/Bios/HenryWotton.htm">SIR HENRY WOTTON.</a> </i>[friend of John Donne]<br />
<br />
The rail is coming to Middlemarch, and the people in their usual resistance to change think it will be a bad thing. The scene: rabblerousers would run off the rail suveyors. Fred Vincy and Caleb Garth see this and assist the rail workers and deal with the locals. Fred gets job with Caleb. This looks good for Fred, with regards to Mary.<br />
<br />
<b>CHAPTER LVII.</b> <i>They numbered scarce eight summers when a name Rose on their souls and stirred such motions there As thrill the buds and shape their hidden frame At penetration of the quickening air: His name who told of loyal Evan Dhu, Of quaint Bradwardine, and Vich Ian Vor, Making the little world their childhood knew Large with a land of mountain lake and scaur, And larger yet with wonder love belief Toward Walter Scott who living far away Sent them this wealth of joy and noble grief. The book and they must part, but day by day, In lines that thwart like portly spiders ran They wrote the tale, from Tully Veolan.</i><br />
<br />
Mrs. Farebrother, mother to the cleric who would woo Mary, talks to Mary of her feelings toward clergy. To be fair to Mrs. Farebrother, it does seem a rather inane reason to leave clergy out of the running:<br />
<blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 18px; line-height: 23px;"><i>"I don't like their neckcloths." "Why, you don't like Camden's, then," said Miss Winifred, in some anxiety. "Yes, I do," said Mary. "I don't like the other clergymen's neckcloths, because it is they who wear them." "How very puzzling!" said Miss Noble, feeling that her own intellect was probably deficient. "My dear, you are joking. You would have better reasons than these for slighting so respectable a class of men," said Mrs. Farebrother, majestically.</i></span></blockquote><br />
<b>CHAPTER LVIII.</b> <i>"For there can live no hatred in thine eye, Therefore in that I cannot know thy change: In many's looks the false heart's history Is writ in moods and frowns and wrinkles strange: But Heaven in thy creation did decree That in thy face sweet love should ever dwell: Whate'er thy thoughts or thy heart's workings be Thy looks should nothing thence but sweetness tell." --SHAKESPEARE: Sonnets.</i><br />
<br />
The Wife: Lydgate and Rosamond squabble over the visit of his cousin the Captain. She enjoys the attention, he sees the sparkle dim from his infatuation. He must deal with the tremendous debt from their marriage, she would refuse to make any changes. This does not bode well.<br />
<br />
<b>CHAPTER LIX. </b><i>They said of old the Soul had human shape, But smaller, subtler than the fleshly self, So wandered forth for airing when it pleased. And see! beside her cherub-face there floats A pale-lipped form aerial whispering Its promptings in that little shell her ear."</i><br />
<br />
The Widow:<br />
<blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 18px; line-height: 23px;"><i>Now Lydgate, like Mr. Farebrother, knew a great deal more than he told, and when he had once been set thinking about the relation between Will and Dorothea his conjectures had gone beyond the fact. He imagined that there was a passionate attachment on both sides, and this struck him as much too serious to gossip about. He remembered Will's irritability when he had mentioned Mrs. Casaubon, and was the more circumspect.</i></span></blockquote>The Wife:<br />
<blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 18px; line-height: 23px;"><i>She was oppressed by ennui, and by that dissatisfaction which in women's minds is continually turning into a trivial jealousy, referring to no real claims, springing from no deeper passion than the vague exactingness of egoism, and yet capable of impelling action as well as speech.</i></span></blockquote><b>CHAPTER LX.</b> <i>Good phrases are surely, and ever were, very commendable. --Justice Shallow. </i>[old friend of Falstaff's, Henry IV, part 2]<br />
<br />
Uh-oh. Raffles makes an appearance again. The sale, like a fair, is a fun scene.<br />
<br />
<b>CHAPTER LXI. </b><i>"Inconsistencies," answered Imlac, "cannot both be right, but imputed to man they may both be true."--Rasselas. </i>[from <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_History_of_Rasselas,_Prince_of_Abissinia">The History of Rasselas, Prince of Abissinia</a> by Samuel Johnson]<br />
<br />
Like a pearl, Mr. Bulstrode's good works have grown around a flaw, a dark seed coming from a lie. His money first came from questionable pawnbrokers, then he withheld knowledge of his wife's daughter, a daughter who would inherit her money. Instead he did. And this is what Raffles has on him. And this is what propels him to good deeds with his fortune. In a way he's pathetic, but he is also just trying to maintain his family's position.<br />
<br />
<b>CHAPTER LXII.</b> <i>"He was a squyer of lowe degre, That loved the king's daughter of Hungrie. --Old Romance.</i><br />
<br />
OK, now Dorothea and Will both know the conditions of their divide. And so they part. <i>"She put out her hand, and Will took it for an instant without speaking, for her words had seemed to him cruelly cold and unlike herself. Their eyes met, but there was discontent in his, and in hers there was only sadness." </i><br />
<blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 18px; line-height: 23px;"><i>How could he dream of her defying the barrier that her husband had placed between them?--how could she ever say to herself that she would defy it? Will's certainty as the carriage grew smaller in the distance, had much more bitterness in it. Very slight matters were enough to gall him in his sensitive mood, and the sight of Dorothea driving past him while he felt himself plodding along as a poor devil seeking a position in a world which in his present temper offered him little that he coveted, made his conduct seem a mere matter of necessity, and took away the sustainment of resolve.</i></span></blockquote>Heidihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01555381490834134232noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6168408.post-73675354621426835552011-10-03T23:07:00.000-07:002011-10-04T02:25:08.239-07:00Slow Read: Middlemarch Book 5<a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/19090.Middlemarch?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_book" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="Middlemarch" height="200" src="http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1167197977m/19090.jpg" width="125" /></a><br />
<b>BOOK V. THE DEAD HAND. <br />
CHAPTER XLIII.</b><i> This figure hath high price: 't was wrought with love Ages ago in finest ivory; Nought modish in it, pure and noble lines Of generous womanhood that fits all time That too is costly ware; majolica Of deft design, to please a lordly eye: The smile, you see, is perfect--wonderful As mere Faience! a table ornament To suit the richest mounting."</i><br />
<br />
When Mrs. Casaubon visits the doctor to learn about her husband's health, we get a glimpse into Rosamond's thoughts. She realizes even though she is married, she can make conquests. Could it be she is the table ornament?<br />
<br />
<b>CHAPTER XLIV.</b> <i>I would not creep along the coast but steer Out in mid-sea, by guidance of the stars.</i><br />
<br />
With his age, do Casaubon and Dorothea ever have a real chance? His paranoia widens the rift: <i>"<span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 19px; line-height: 23px;">He distrusted her affection; and what loneliness is more lonely than distrust?"</span></i><br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.luminarium.org/sevenlit/browne/browne.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="http://www.luminarium.org/sevenlit/browne/browne.jpg" width="153" /></a></div><b>CHAPTER XLV.</b> <i>It is the humor of many heads to extol the days of their forefathers, and declaim against the wickedness of times present. Which notwithstanding they cannot handsomely do, without the borrowed help and satire of times past; condemning the vices of their own times, by the expressions of vices in times which they commend, which cannot but argue the community of vice in both. Horace, therefore, Juvenal, and Persius, were no prophets, although their lines did seem to indigitate and point at our times.--<a href="http://www.luminarium.org/sevenlit/browne/">SIR THOMAS BROWNE</a>: Pseudodoxia Epidemica.</i><br />
<br />
Gossip about the outsider Dr. Lydgate: he wants to cut up bodies willy-nilly; he never ever dispenses drugs; and is<i> ">disagreeably inattentive to etiquette."</i><br />
That last bit is probably true.<br />
<br />
Advice from Farebrother: don't get too close to Bulstrode; don't get into debt. Can you say "foreshadow?"<br />
<br />
<b>CHAPTER XLVI.</b> <i>Pues no podemos haber aquello que queremos, queramos aquello que podremos. Since we cannot get what we like, let us like what we can get. --Spanish Proverb.</i><br />
<br />
Wo, what? Or how about "You can't always get what you want/ And if you try sometime you find/ You get what you need" or "and if you can’t be with the one you love, honey, love the one you’re with..."?<br />
<i></i><br />
<blockquote><i>You hurt me very much when you look so, Tertius." "Do I? Then I am a brute," said Lydgate, caressing her penitently. "What vexed you?" "Oh, outdoor things--business." It was really a letter insisting on the payment of a bill for furniture. But Rosamond was expecting to have a baby, and Lydgate wished to save her from any perturbation. <br />
</i></blockquote>So the one she's with doesn't make enough money, and the one he's with is a flibbertigibbet.<br />
<br />
<b>CHAPTER XLVII.</b> <i>Was never true love loved in vain, For truest love is highest gain. No art can make it: it must spring Where elements are fostering. So in heaven's spot and hour Springs the little native flower, Downward root and upward eye, Shapen by the earth and sky.</i><br />
<br />
Will Ladislaw in his smitten state finds a loophole in Casaubon's order to stay way: church! But one should be careful what one wishes for.<br />
<blockquote><i>Will walked out after them, but they went on towards the little gate leading out of the churchyard into the shrubbery, never looking round. It was impossible for him to follow them, and he could only walk back sadly at mid-day along the same road which he had trodden hopefully in the morning. The lights were all changed for him both without and within. </i></blockquote><b>CHAPTER XLVIII</b> <i>Surely the golden hours are turning gray And dance no more, and vainly strive to run: I see their white locks streaming in the wind-- Each face is haggard as it looks at me, Slow turning in the constant clasping round Storm-driven.</i><br />
<br />
Casaubon would shackle Dorothea from beyond the grave. She has some small will to choose for herself left, and takes some time to decide whether to promise. Perhaps the cosmos is smiling on her after all...he dies before she can say yes.<br />
<br />
<b>CHAPTER XLIX.</b><i> A task too strong for wizard spells This squire had brought about; 'T is easy dropping stones in wells, But who shall get them out?"</i><br />
<br />
But Casaubon extends his suspicions from beyond the grave. Sir James continues to be the knightly gentleman as her brother-in-law:<br />
<blockquote><i>"I say that he has most unfairly compromised Dorothea. I say that there never was a meaner, more ungentlemanly action than this--a codicil of this sort to a will which he made at the time of his marriage with the knowledge and reliance of her family-- a positive insult to Dorothea!"</i></blockquote><b>CHAPTER L.</b> <i>"`This Loller here wol precilen us somewhat.' `Nay by my father's soule! that schal he nat,' Sayde the Schipman, `here schal he not preche, We schal no gospel glosen here ne teche. We leven all in the gret God,' quod he. He wolden sowen some diffcultee." Canterbury Tales.</i><br />
<blockquote><i>Her world was in a state of convulsive change; the only thing she could say distinctly to herself was, that she must wait and think anew. One change terrified her as if it had been a sin; it was a violent shock of repulsion from her departed husband, who had had hidden thoughts, perhaps perverting everything she said and did.</i></blockquote>Dorothea is transformed by the knowledge of her husband that his death brought her. Relationships change even after death, and a person is affected.<br />
<br />
<b>CHAPTER LI.</b> <i>Party is Nature too, and you shall see By force of Logic how they both agree: The Many in the One, the One in Many; All is not Some, nor Some the same as Any: Genus holds species, both are great or small; One genus highest, one not high at all; Each species has its differentia too, This is not That, and He was never You, Though this and that are AYES, and you and he Are like as one to one, or three to three.</i><br />
<br />
Mr. Brooke tries his hand at politics...not very good at it, but Ladislaw is, whom he has taken on.<br />
<br />
<b>CHAPTER LII.</b> <i>"His heart The lowliest duties on itself did lay." --WORDSWORTH.</i><br />
<br />
Mr. Farebrother as cleric has the unwelcome task of acting as go-between for Fred and Mary. Will she have him? But Mr. Farebrother cannot say he likes her himself. What a soap opera!<br />
<br />
<b>CHAPTER LIII.</b> <i>It is but a shallow haste which concludeth insincerity from what outsiders call inconsistency--putting a dead mechanism of "ifs" and "therefores" for the living myriad of hidden suckers whereby the belief and the conduct are wrought into mutual sustainment.</i><br />
<blockquote><i>Mr. Raffles had pushed away his chair and looked down at himself, particularly at his straps. His chief intention was to annoy Bulstrode, but he really thought that his appearance now would produce a good effect, and that he was not only handsome and witty, but clad in a mourning style which implied solid connections.</i></blockquote>Mr. Raffles is not just visiting Bulstrode to blackmail, he's there to blackmail with panache.Heidihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01555381490834134232noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6168408.post-74696026608777720902011-09-26T23:24:00.000-07:002011-09-27T01:50:12.723-07:00Eastern Oregon Trip: Elkhorn Scenic Byway<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/hoogstra/6068341833/" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;" title="IMG_5515_1 by hoogstra, on Flickr"><img alt="IMG_5515_1" height="240" src="http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6090/6068341833_ae5d15aae7_b.jpg" width="320" /></a>After shuffling through two museums, we were ready to go for a drive. Our first destination outside of Baker City was Sumpter, Oregon, a little over a half-hour drive. Sumpter doesn't qualify as a ghost-town, but it has plenty of those Old West buildings, and it has a ghost-dredge....a retired gold dredge, that is.<br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.historicsumpter.com/sumpter-oregon-dredge-park.html">The gold dredge</a> used water to pull the gold out of the soil. The material sluiced through the moving building, water washing the gold to the bottom of the sluices, along with other heavy materials, and the lighter materials were dumped out the back. The gold bits mixed with black sand were tumbled in a barrel with mercury-coated paddles. The gold bonded with the mercury, while the black sand escaped below. I wonder if the person responsible for this gave the Mad Hatter a run for his money. I also wonder how much mercury escaped into the ponds and piles and the Powder River.<br />
<br />
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This was the <a href="http://www.oregonstateparks.org/park_239.php">last of three dredges built on the Powder River</a>, built in 1935, retired in 1954.. After viewing the dredge inside and out, it was mid-afternoon, and we had a choice: retrace our drive back to Baker City, or keep going on the scenic byway. If we returned, we'd have enough time to visit the Oregon Trail Interpretive Center, but if we kept going we'd see walls built by the Chinese, ghost towns, and pass over the mountains. We decided to keep going, and there might still be time to make it to the Interpretive Center. First detour off the byway: Granite.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/hoogstra/6068350551/" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;" title="Granite by hoogstra, on Flickr"><img alt="Granite" height="300" src="http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6200/6068350551_4d1ce9dce0_b.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br />
<br />
Granite was supposed to be a ghost town, but it looked pretty occupied, and while the old buildings were minimally renovated, you could see the modern energy-efficient doors and windows. The next stop on the byway was to visit the <a href="http://www.oregonencyclopedia.org/entry/view/ah_hee_diggings_chinese_walls_/">Chinese Walls</a>, but now that I research, I see I was looking at the wrong thing! <br />
<blockquote><i>"The Ah Hee Diggings, also called the Chinese Walls, are sixty acres of hand-stacked, winding rock walls constructed of placer mine tailings. The walls were built by Chinese miners who worked gold-mining claims for the Ah Hee Placer Mining Company along a five-mile stretch of Granite Creek from 1867 to 1891." </i>source, link above</blockquote>All the signs showed the stop with stone barriers, so I took photos of those, but what <a href="http://www.embraceoregon.com/LIST.asp?pk=7&Name=Eastern+Oregon&Level=2">this website shows</a> as walls were not cemented rocks, but piled rocks.<br />
<br />
Before Granite we went over a pass of 5,864 feet, and after, a pass at over 7,800 feet, and we saw a mountain still a 1,000 feet higher. The temperature up there was 66 degrees, and when we got to the valley, it was 81 degrees.<br />
<br />
We made it to the <a href="http://www.blm.gov/or/oregontrail/">Oregon Trail Interpretive Center</a> just 20 minutes before they closed. They didn't charge us, though my sweetie donated some money anyway, and they informed us that we could look but we had to be out of the parking lot by 6 pm. <br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/hoogstra/6068909026/" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;" title="IMG_5601_1 by hoogstra, on Flickr"><img alt="IMG_5601_1" height="300" src="http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6209/6068909026_28d049bc4d_b.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br />
After, we would have liked to stop to see wagon trail ruts near the road, but we had little time to catch some dinner, then go back to Sumpter for our moonlight train ride on the <a href="http://www.svry.com/index.html">Sumpter Valley Railway</a>. (We ordered room service again for a quick but tasty meal.) We'll just have to visit the <a href="http://historicoregoncity.org/visitor-hours">End of the Oregon Trail</a> nearby in Oregon City sometime soon. More photos of the dredge, the mountain drive, and the Oregon Trail center <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/hoogstra/sets/72157627366241863/">can be found here</a>, along with further details.<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/hoogstra/6068939174/" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;" title="IMG_5610_1 by hoogstra, on Flickr"><img alt="IMG_5610_1" height="300" src="http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6210/6068939174_200f99e0b6_b.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br />
Normally one would ride this train during the day, but because there was a full moon and the <a href="http://meteorshowersonline.com/perseids.html">Perseid Meteor Showers</a> were expected, this Moonlight Express was scheduled. Just at that point in time when the next moment I couldn't see, the moment just before that, I saw a deer. This was the extent of our wildlife spotting, other than birds and chipmunks. After twilight fell I spent most of my time with my head back looking at the sky above. Of course that bright lamp of the full moon didn't help any for spotting shooting stars, but I did see one, on our trip back to McEwan Station. The 7 mile trip was extended in time thanks to changing of the engine from front to back, so it would be front again after Sumpter Station. Also, we had cake. <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/hoogstra/sets/72157627490755286/with/6068396935/">More photos and details here</a>.<br />
<br />
This was a very full day.Heidihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01555381490834134232noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6168408.post-52847896357030410372011-09-25T09:07:00.000-07:002011-09-25T01:33:20.739-07:00Slow Read: Middlemarch Book 4<a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1474235.Middlemarch?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_book" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="Middlemarch" height="200" src="http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1183987186m/1474235.jpg" width="133" /></a><br />
<b>BOOK IV. THREE LOVE PROBLEMS. </b><br />
Three love problems....hmmm. Mary and Fred? Rosamond and Mr. Lydgate? Dorothea and Casaubon?<br />
<b>CHAPTER XXXIV.</b> <i>1st Gent. Such men as this are feathers, chips, and straws. Carry no weight, no force. 2d Gent. But levity Is causal too, and makes the sum of weight. For power finds its place in lack of power; Advance is cession, and the driven ship May run aground because the helmsman's thought Lacked force to balance opposites."</i><br />
<blockquote><i>If any one will here contend that there must have been traits of goodness in old Featherstone, I will not presume to deny this; but I must observe that goodness is of a modest nature, easily discouraged, and when much privacy, elbowed in early life by unabashed vices, is apt to retire into extreme privacy, so that it is more easily believed in by those who construct a selfish old gentleman theoretically, than by those who form the narrower judgments based on his personal acquaintance.<br />
</i></blockquote><br />
In other words, if you thought there must be goodness in him, you didn't know Featherstone.<br />
<br />
Watching funeral attendees...a day's entertainment:<br />
<blockquote><i> "Ah, now they are coming out of church," Mrs. Cadwallader exclaimed. "Dear me, what a wonderfully mixed set! Mr. Lydgate as doctor, I suppose. But that is really a good looking woman, and the fair young man must be her son. Who are they, Sir James, do you know?" "I see Vincy, the Mayor of Middlemarch; they are probably his wife and son," said Sir James</i></blockquote><b>CHAPTER XXXV.</b> <i>"Non, je ne comprends pas de plus charmant plaisir Que de voir d'heritiers une troupe affligee Le maintien interdit, et la mine allongee, Lire un long testament ou pales, etonnes On leur laisse un bonsoir avec un pied de nez. Pour voir au naturel leur tristesse profonde Je reviendrais, je crois, expres de l'autre monde." --REGNARD: Le Legataire Universel.</i><br />
<br />
Google translates (hey, don't knock it...my two years of French for reading knowledge was over 20 years ago): <i>"No, I do not understand a more charming pleasure to see a troop of heirs afflicted Maintaining prohibited, and the long face, read a will or long blades, astonished They leave a good evening with a snub. To see in their natural deep sadness I would, I believe, expression of the other world. "- REGNARD: The sole heir.</i><br />
<blockquote><i>There was still a residue of personal property as well as the land, but the whole was left to one person, and that person was-- O possibilities! O expectations founded on the favor of "close" old gentlemen! O endless vocatives that would still leave expression slipping helpless from the measurement of mortal folly!-- that residuary legatee was Joshua Rigg, who was also sole executor, and who was to take thenceforth the name of Featherstone.<br />
</i></blockquote>And Mary, no one knows but Mary, could have caused a different outcome. So, problem one: Mary ruined Fred Vincy's chances, and thus his chances with her.<br />
<b><br />
CHAPTER XXXVI.</b><i> "'Tis strange to see the humors of these men, These great aspiring spirits, that should be wise: . . . . . . . . For being the nature of great spirits to love To be where they may be most eminent; They, rating of themselves so farre above Us in conceit, with whom they do frequent, Imagine how we wonder and esteeme All that they do or say; which makes them strive To make our admiration more extreme, Which they suppose they cannot, 'less they give Notice of their extreme and highest thoughts. --DANIEL: Tragedy of Philotas.<br />
</i><br />
<br />
<blockquote><i>"Walter, you never mean to tell me that you have allowed all this to go on without inquiry into Mr. Lydgate's prospects?" said Mrs. Bulstrode, opening her eyes with wider gravity at her brother, who was in his peevish warehouse humor. "Think of this girl brought up in luxury--in too worldly a way, I am sorry to say-- what will she do on a small income?"</i></blockquote>Problem two: Rosamond will spend beyond Lydgate's means.<br />
<b><br />
CHAPTER XXXVII.</b> <i>"Thrice happy she that is so well assured Unto herself and settled so in heart That neither will for better be allured Ne fears to worse with any chance to start, But like a steddy ship doth strongly part The raging waves and keeps her course aright; Ne aught for tempest doth from it depart, Ne aught for fairer weather's false delight. Such self-assurance need not fear the spight Of grudging foes; ne favour seek of friends; But in the stay of her own stedfast might Neither to one herself nor other bends. Most happy she that most assured doth rest, But he most happy who such one loves best." --SPENSER.</i><br />
<blockquote><i>Not for one moment did Mr. Casaubon suspect Dorothea of any doubleness: he had no suspicions of her, but he had (what was little less uncomfortable) the positive knowledge that her tendency to form opinions about her husband's conduct was accompanied with a disposition to regard Will Ladislaw favorably and be influenced by what he said.</i></blockquote>Problem three: Not, as I might have expected, the popping of Dorothea's bubble of Mr. Casaubon, but Mr. Casaubon's jealousy stemming from feelings of inadequacy.<br />
<br />
<b>CHAPTER XXXVIII.</b> <i>"C'est beaucoup que le jugement des hommes sur les actions humaines; tot ou tard il devient efficace."--GUIZOT.</i><br />
<i>"It's great, men's judgment over human actions, sooner or later it becomes effective."<br />
</i><br />
Uh-oh...politics.<br />
<br />
<b>CHAPTER XXXIX.</b><i> "If, as I have, you also doe, Vertue attired in woman see, And dare love that, and say so too, And forget the He and She; And if this love, though placed so, From prophane men you hide, Which will no faith on this bestow, Or, if they doe, deride: Then you have done a braver thing Than all the Worthies did, And a braver thence will spring, Which is, to keep that hid." --DR. DONNE.</i><br />
<br />
Oh the intrigue! Sir James gets Dorothea to her uncle's estate so she can get him on the right track regarding the estate, and politics, but he has to pretend she's visiting Celia. Will is there, who is forbidden to visit by Casaubon, and of course, Will's smittenness deepens. And Brooke...he quarreled with Garth years ago? The interconnections of Middlemarch, a small world.<br />
<br />
<b>CHAPTER XL.</b><i> Wise in his daily work was he: To fruits of diligence, And not to faiths or polity, He plied his utmost sense. These perfect in their little parts, Whose work is all their prize-- Without them how could laws, or arts, Or towered cities rise?</i><br />
<br />
Thanks to the machinations of Sir James, the Garths are pulled up out of their poverty. The Garths tell the vicar, Mr. Farebrother, who often visits the Vincys, about Mary's secret late night with the old man and her indirect influence on Fred Vincy's lack of inheritance.<br />
<br />
<b>CHAPTER XLI.</b><i> "By swaggering could I never thrive, For the rain it raineth every day. --Twelfth Night</i><br />
<blockquote><i>He played this part now with as much spirit as if his journey had been entirely successful, resorting at frequent intervals to his flask. The paper with which he had wedged it was a letter signed Nicholas Bulstrode, but Raffles was not likely to disturb it from its present useful position. <br />
</i></blockquote>The surprise heir Rigg has a surprise ne'erdowell step-father. What will he do with that letter from Bulstrode?<br />
<br />
<b>CHAPTER XLII.</b><i> "How much, methinks, I could despise this man Were I not bound in charity against it! --SHAKESPEARE: Henry VIII.</i><br />
<blockquote><i>Instead of wondering at this result of misery in Mr. Casaubon, I think it quite ordinary. Will not a tiny speck very close to our vision blot out the glory of the world, and leave only a margin by which we see the blot? I know no speck so troublesome as self.</i></blockquote>I think this narrator is a closet Buddhist. That's what it's all about...this troublesome self.<br />
<br />
Now Dorothea's belief in her husband begins to erode. The honeymoon's over, and the two don't know how to connect to each other, he especially.Heidihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01555381490834134232noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6168408.post-35093592979917046492011-09-24T23:36:00.000-07:002011-09-24T23:36:50.560-07:00Slow Read: Middlemarch Book 3, Chapters 28-33<b>CHAPTER XXVIII.</b> <i>1st Gent. All times are good to seek your wedded home Bringing a mutual delight. 2d Gent. Why, true. The calendar hath not an evil day For souls made one by love, and even death Were sweetness, if it came like rolling waves While they two clasped each other, and foresaw No life apart.</i><br />
<br />
<b>CHAPTER XXIX.</b> <i>"I found that no genius in another could please me. My unfortunate paradoxes had entirely dried up that source of comfort."--GOLDSMITH.</i><br />
<blockquote><i>It is an uneasy lot at best, to be what we call highly taught and yet not to enjoy: to be present at this great spectacle of life and never to be liberated from a small hungry shivering self-- never to be fully possessed by the glory we behold, never to have our consciousness rapturously transformed into the vividness of a thought, the ardor of a passion, the energy of an action, but always to be scholarly and uninspired, ambitious and timid, scrupulous and dim-sighted.<br />
</blockquote></i><br />
Casaubon is a small man, who managed to land a great wife.<br />
<br />
<b>CHAPTER XXX.</b> <i>"Qui veut delasser hors de propos, lasse."--PASCAL.</i><br />
Translation, <a href="http://www.languagehat.com/archives/003163.php">thanks to this blogger:</a> <i>Whoever tries to divert us at the wrong time tires us out</i><br />
<blockquote><i>Lydgate would have taken no notice of these words as anything more than the Vicar's usual way of putting things. They seemed now to convey an innuendo which confirmed the impression that he had been making a fool of himself and behaving so as to be misunderstood: not, he believed, by Rosamond herself; she, he felt sure, took everything as lightly as he intended it. <br />
</blockquote></i><br />
Or not. Clueless. Everyone is clueless.<br />
<br />
<b>CHAPTER XXXI.</b> <i>How will you know the pitch of that great bell Too large for you to stir? Let but a flute Play 'neath the fine-mixed metal listen close Till the right note flows forth, a silvery rill. Then shall the huge bell tremble--then the mass With myriad waves concurrent shall respond In low soft unison.</i><br />
<blockquote><i>That moment of naturalness was the crystallizing feather-touch: it shook flirtation into love. Remember that the ambitious man who was looking at those Forget-me-nots under the water was very warm-hearted and rash. He did not know where the chain went; an idea had thrilled through the recesses within him which had a miraculous effect in raising the power of passionate love lying buried there in no sealed sepulchre, but under the lightest, easily pierced mould. His words were quite abrupt and awkward; but the tone made them sound like an ardent, appealing avowal. "What is the matter? you are distressed. Tell me, pray."<br />
</blockquote></i><br />
So how it happens...a crystallizing moment. Words unfold, love awakened. So seemingly inconsequential, but that enormous fullness of love was just shimmering beneath a thin skin, ready for a single moment to allow it to burst out.<br />
<br />
<b>CHAPTER XXXII.</b> <i>"They'll take suggestion as a cat laps milk." --SHAKESPEARE: Tempest.</i><br />
<blockquote><i>For the old man's dislike of his own family seemed to get stronger as he got less able to amuse himself by saying biting things to them. Too languid to sting, he had the more venom refluent in his blood. Not fully believing the message sent through Mary Garth, they had presented themselves together within the door of the bedroom, both in black--Mrs. Waule having a white handkerchief partially unfolded in her hand--and both with faces in a sort of half-mourning purple...<br />
</blockquote></i><br />
The vultures circle, waiting to feast on the old man's remains.<br />
<br />
<b>CHAPTER XXXIII.</b> <i>"Close up his eyes and draw the curtain close; And let us all to meditation." --2 Henry VI.</i><br />
<blockquote><i>In a very little while there was no longer any doubt that Peter Featherstone was dead, with his right hand clasping the keys, and his left hand lying on the heap of notes and gold.</i></blockquote>This death scene was so Dickensian, was it not? Mary Garth alone with the old man, who would pull his puppet strings of the people around him to his last breath, but she would not be put in that spot.Heidihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01555381490834134232noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6168408.post-21312173186124175502011-09-13T08:05:00.000-07:002011-09-13T08:05:00.302-07:00Slow Read: Middlemarch Book 3, Chapters 23-27<a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/398216.Middlemarch?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_book" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="Middlemarch" height="320" src="http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1285209500m/398216.jpg" width="204" /></a><br />
<br />
My days are just packed. I've been reading this, as well as another very long book. This coming week I start co-teaching that class at the Zen Center, and that involves the class time as well as preparation and an extra meeting each week. To top it off, I signed up for a training at work this week. Oh, and Dharma School starts <i>this</i> Sunday...not <i>next</i> Sunday. So....gonna be a little behind on the reflective blogging bit. <br />
<br />
<b>BOOK III. WAITING FOR DEATH.</b> <br />
<b> CHAPTER XXIII.</b> <i>"Your horses of the Sun," he said, "And first-rate whip Apollo! Whate'er they be, I'll eat my head, But I will beat them hollow."</i><br />
<blockquote><i><span class="highlight">And Fred winced under the idea of being looked down upon as wanting funds for small debts. Thus it came to pass that the friend whom he chose to apply to was at once the poorest and the kindest--namely, Caleb Garth.</span></i></blockquote>Oh Fred Fred Fred. Bad idea. Way to ruin things with Mary.<br />
<i></i><br />
<blockquote><i>Fred believed in the excellence of his bargain, and even before the fair had well set in, had got possession of the dappled gray, at the price of his old horse and thirty pounds in addition--only five pounds more than he had expected to give. </i></blockquote><br />
Oh Fred Fred Fred, way to fall from the frying pan into the fire. You got all excited about that horse sight unseen, so of course you didn't see the flaws.<br />
<br />
<b>CHAPTER XXIV.</b> <i>"The offender's sorrow brings but small relief To him who wears the strong offence's cross." --SHAKESPEARE: Sonnets.</i><br />
Fred...<br />
<blockquote><i>had not occupied himself with the inconvenience and possible injury that his breach might occasion them, for this exercise of the imagination on other people's needs is not common with hopeful young gentlemen.</i></blockquote><br />
That's putting it lightly. Foolish, happy-go-lucky, selfish Fred.<br />
<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/00/William_Blake_by_Thomas_Phillips.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="200" src="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/00/William_Blake_by_Thomas_Phillips.jpg" width="153" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">W. Blake</td></tr>
</tbody></table><b>CHAPTER XXV.</b> <i>"Love seeketh not itself to please, Nor for itself hath any care But for another gives its ease And builds a heaven in hell's despair. . . . . . . . Love seeketh only self to please, To bind another to its delight, Joys in another's loss of ease, And builds a hell in heaven's despite." --W. BLAKE: Songs of Experience</i><br />
And here are your consequences, Fred:<br />
<i></i><br />
<blockquote><i>"I will try to be anything you like, Mary, if you will say that you love me." "I should be ashamed to say that I loved a man who must always be hanging on others, and reckoning on what they would do for him. What will you be when you are forty? </i></blockquote><br />
<b>CHAPTER XXVI.</b> <i>"He beats me and I rail at him: O worthy satisfaction! would it were otherwise--that I could beat him while he railed at me.--" --Troilus and Cressida.</i><br />
<br />
Fred takes ill, Wrench barely does his duty as doc, and the Vincys take on Lydgate for a doctor. Gossip ensues, romance soon to follow.<br />
<br />
<b>CHAPTER XXVII.</b> <i>Let the high Muse chant loves Olympian: We are but mortals, and must sing of man.</i><br />
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Girl flirts with Doctor, considers herself practically engaged. Doctor flirts with girl, thinking that's just what they do.<br />
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<blockquote><i>It is true, Lydgate had the counter-idea of remaining unengaged; but this was a mere negative, a shadow east by other resolves which themselves were capable of shrinking. Circumstance was almost sure to be on the side of Rosamond's idea, which had a shaping activity and looked through watchful blue eyes, whereas Lydgate's lay blind and unconcerned as a jelly-fish which gets melted without knowing it.</i></blockquote><br />
Lydgate sure has been blind to her possible effect on him, as his mind has been more on research and doctoring than on girls.Heidihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01555381490834134232noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6168408.post-23748254967286707642011-09-12T23:50:00.001-07:002011-09-13T01:33:52.583-07:00Eastern Oregon Trip: Museums<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/hoogstra/6068192437/" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" title="lamp by hoogstra, on Flickr"><img alt="lamp" height="320" src="http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6195/6068192437_28db48beb1_b.jpg" width="240" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">First view on entering the Adler Museum</td></tr>
</tbody></table>We managed to pack two or three days into one. On our one full day away from home, we managed to see two museums, travel the <a href="http://www.byways.org/explore/byways/2151">Elkhorn Scenic Byway</a>, which included several "ghost towns" and a state heritage sight, the Oregon Trail Interpretive Center, and a moonlight ride on an historic train.<br />
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After our leisurely room service breakfast, we were ready to do some of that walking around and about that tourists do, so first we went to the <a href="http://www.bakerheritagemuseum.com/adler_house.html">Adler House Museum</a>. We happened to arrive just as the museum guide was starting a tour.<br />
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<a href="http://www.oregonencyclopedia.org/entry/view/adler_leo_1895_1993_/">Leo Adler</a> lived his entire life in this house, was a major philanthropist in Baker City, never married, and left his fortune to Baker County, including his house. Once he lived alone in the house he closed up the entire upstairs, closed up the front rooms, and only lived in two rooms in the rear of the house. The unused rooms became unheated storage rooms. In some ways this helped preserve household pieces, as they went unused, but weather extremes probably didn't help, and the rooms were never cleaned. <a href="http://www.leoadler.com/bio.html"> Leo was a generous person</a>, and if someone said they liked something, he was apt to give it to them...like the unique lamp at the bottom of the stairs. Leo had given it away to a friend, but museum curators were able to ask for, and get it back. The butler's pantry did not have a full set of dishes because Leo gave many of those away too.<br />
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<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/hoogstra/6068742982/" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" title="foil award from the Pope by hoogstra, on Flickr"><img alt="foil award from the Pope" height="320" src="http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6204/6068742982_618a8c2bd0_b.jpg" width="240" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Leo receives award for good deeds from the Pope</td></tr>
</tbody></table>As we proceeded on the tour, I found myself wondering about those parts left unsaid. Why did Leo and his sister and his brother never marry? Was it because they were Jewish and perhaps there weren't many Jewish people in Oregon? Did any of them have lovers? Our guide showed us a "Chap Book". I didn't get it right away, as I immediately thought of the usual usage of the term. She told us young ladies of the day would keep a book like this to keep track of their dates and whether they liked them. Oooohhh! <i>Chap</i> book. They called them "chaps" in the day. It was the size of a yearly diary, and with room for about 5 chaps per page, there was room for a <i>lot</i> of chaps. It looked as though Elizabeth had many entries, a good twenty pages, though it nowhere near filled the book. All her entries listed the eye color...blue eyes...brown eyes...but as far as I could see as the guide riffed through the book, no opinions on how she liked the boys. Poor Elizabeth died at the age of 33 of the flu. Before that she taught kindergarten in the home. Were all these chaps unworthy, or was Elizabeth just not interested in that? Leo too? Even with prejudice, he would have been a fine catch, but it seems he was uninterested. <br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/hoogstra/6068744382/" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" title="sister Elizabeth by hoogstra, on Flickr"><img alt="sister Elizabeth" height="300" src="http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6089/6068744382_8eefa97aff_b.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">for more photos from the Adler House Museum, <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/hoogstra/sets/72157627365847775/with/6068744382/">go here</a></td></tr>
</tbody></table>Since we happened upon the tour, we took a little longer here than we intended. Next, we went to the <a href="http://www.bakerheritagemuseum.com/index.html">Baker Heritage Museum</a>. Like the <a href="http://www.tcpm.org/">Tillamook Museum</a>, which I am fond of visiting when at the coast, there was an interesting mix of natural history and people history. Whenever I visit these exhibits, it reignites my interest in rocks and fossils. Among the many collections I had as a tween was a rock and fossil collection. I keep meaning to ask my mom what happened to that. I doubt she still has it.<br />
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After I got my camera out in readiness, and as we showed our tickets we'd got at the first museum (it cost less to visit both), my sweetie pointed out the sign that said no photography was allowed. The clerk told us photos were okay, just no flash was allowed. Good thing, because there was too much to see, and photos help me reflect on and remember things. <br />
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<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/hoogstra/6068245569/" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" title="Crystal Palace by hoogstra, on Flickr"><img alt="Crystal Palace" height="240" src="http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6203/6068245569_a28ab8bda7_b.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The Crystal Palace</td></tr>
</tbody></table>I noticed that when you visit small museums like this, the exhibits depicting life back when look very similar...especially the schoolrooms. However, this museum also had rooms that depicted very specific pieces of Baker County history, such as the shop that Leo Adler's father owned, The Crystal Palace.<br />
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What might make these little County museums unique are these specific histories. In Tillamook, there's an entire wall of portrait photos of founding citizens (see <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/hoogstra/5139153612/in/set-72157625170039647">Elbridge Trask</a>, immortalized by Don Berry in <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0870710230/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=adventinmulti-20&linkCode=as2&camp=217145&creative=399373&creativeASIN=0870710230">Trask</a><img alt="" border="0" height="1" src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=&l=as2&o=1&a=0870710230&camp=217145&creative=399373" style="border: none !important; margin: 0px !important;" width="1" />). Here, there was a particular focus on mining and logging history, as well as these scenes featuring the histories of specific citizens. And I wonder, do all these museums have some stuffed animals? I remind myself these animals would long be dead already anyway.<br />
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Coming next, our scenic drive. I leave you with the photo of the model for the film set of <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00003CXBX/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=adventinmulti-20&linkCode=as2&camp=217145&creative=399369&creativeASIN=B00003CXBX">Paint Your Wagon</a><img alt="" border="0" height="1" src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=&l=as2&o=1&a=B00003CXBX&camp=217145&creative=399369" style="border: none !important; margin: 0px !important;" width="1" />.<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/hoogstra/6068804128/" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" title="film set model for Paint Your Wagon by hoogstra, on Flickr"><img alt="film set model for Paint Your Wagon" height="300" src="http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6197/6068804128_d4da87bd21_b.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">For more photos of the Baker Heritage Museum collections, <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/hoogstra/sets/72157627490371360/">go here</a>.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>Heidihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01555381490834134232noreply@blogger.com1