Author: L.E. Hansen

by

Noting Observations Of Yesterday

“Note this before you note my notes, there’s not a note of mine that’s worth the noting.” ~ Much Ado About Nothing ~ Wm. S.

I finally got myself to the swimming pool. The one over in Seven Hills because they are replacing the building in Broadview Heights. I have no idea why I was struggling so to get there. An oversimplified fear of the unknown? A left-over fear from childhood? The one where you go in and do something incredibly wrong within the social norms of that place and are ever after known as the “newone” or names much worse. Ostracized by the fact of not knowing and therefore stupid. Children rarely allow for outside effects and circumstances; they are judges of the now. The right now, in black and white. (Maybe children should be the only juries we have.) That all seems silly to me. And yet—is fear, hidden to the self, why we call ourselves lazy?

But here’s the funny thing, the reason I noted the swimming pool visit: I got a sunburn, and it’s an indoor pool.

After the pool, I went to one of my favorite eating places which is right in front of the community center, Eddie’s Pizzaria. My intention was to get a martini and a salad. Yeah, right. I wasn’t craving pizza and I’m on a semi-successful diet. (Worth noting is that the swimming suit, once a struggle to put on, is now too big.) I managed the part of the intention that involved the martini. For desert I had one of those small fry-pan-looking things filled with a very large and warm chocolate chip cookie garnished with two large scoops of vanilla bean ice cream. It is decadent. deliciously decadent. I left not a crumb behind. This all leads to the subject of Will Power.

Will Power. First cousin to Free Will. If there is such a thing. (Some argument ensues in my mind. If there’s such a thing as my anything at all.) Staying with the subject of Will Power, among many other things there is more than one school of thought. The most recent propaganda espousing the limits of Will Power is the replenishing of same. Namely, Will Power is not strengthened by use, rather is run out by continual use. In order to replenish, one must refrain from all of that use. Just what constitutes over use is unknown. Unfortunately I must have run out of Will Power just after leaving the pool. That’s what I get for using up all that Will Power to get to the pool.

And I don’t know how to replenish this Will Power. Just how long must I refrain from using it? I want to know. Right now I am practicing disuse of Will Power. Wait, wait!…Doesn’t that call for Will Power?

 

 

 

by

St. Bennie

Yesterday, July 11, was the feast day of St. Benedict. St. Bennie ranks high in Roman Catholic veneration.  He is known as the Father of Western Monasticism due to his great influence on the shape and character of monastic life in the West. He found the lackadaisical approach to discipline of most monasteries irreverent and unacceptable. He was happy to provide structure and rules, and open new monasteries for his followers.

StBennieThe Eastern Orthodox Church also venerates the saint who is the patron saint of students.

stBenedict

Eastern Orthodox icon of Saint Benedict.

by

Really?

How great to be original, different, creative. My favorite descriptors, all the more potent when come to life. Below we see  fanciful tin ostriches embodying the season.

Slice ofLife
Posted by Slice of Life

In my own attempt to glorify my patio and because, I speculate, I’m always willing to push the limits, I went over the patio line. Yes, fully aware I infringed on common ground. Where previous dogs had peed on the ornamental grass outside our building and successfully turned beauty into brown death and yellowed greenery, I placed a large container with an ornamental grass. I thought it looked lovely. So did my neighbors. (The grounds people had given up on replanting as that had turned into a suicide mission for the grass.) I thought they (the dogs) could lift away and do nothing to the large brown pottery.

Then, successful with that, I put a large flowering hydrophyllum out away from the patio. I then purchased some large tiles to place for stepping into my patio from the sidewalk. As it is always being used for a footpath, it is wearing the grass into dirt. I then placed the purple hydrophyllum  on one of the tiles to come to a realized glory in the sun.

Two days ago, while mowing the lawn, the grounds people took up the tiles and placed them and the hydrophyllum on my patio. When they were finished, I put the tiles and plant back to their previous state. Today someone else took up the tiles, the hydrophyllum, and the ornamental grass and placed them ingloriously on my patio. As there was no yard work being done, I must conclude it was a management minion in action.

Message received.  I guess brown and yellow are preferred expressions of apartment living, as long as the rules are obeyed. So now I’m sulking. I’m mostly sulking because my beautiful hydrophyllum will no longer get enough sun. And the lovely ornamental grass in the large brown pot that coordinated with the grounds elsewhere has been replaced by a mound of dirt.

My patio is so small that I could not now sit out there if I wanted to. The table is covered in flowering plants and the two chairs have been shoved out of the way so as to make it impossible to open the storage doors out there. It’s nothing other than ridiculous for me to be pouting and sulking. But I am. Really.

by

Once Again, The Eyes

With Suki The Cat

Suki is a bengal tiger cat. (Maybe it’s just bengal, without the tiger.) I discovered Suki and her person’s blog quite by accident. I was looking at another blog that had photos of the bengal cat, very interesting photos and placement. It was not the theme of the blog but appeared here and there. Then, of a sudden there appeared in the comments a note from Suki’s person: Anne-Marie Noble. Anne asked for credit on her photos. She said it very nicely, saying the use of her work was fine, just please give credit where credit was due. She was much nicer than I would have been. I started following the Suki blog, of course, and can’t remember the one I started with.

Here are some photos that Anne-Marie put on her blog. It brings me delight to watch the adventures of Suki. And the bonus is, The Eyes! A kindred spirit in the fascination with the eye and what it contains. How different each one is. That was such an outstanding feature of Squeek—those big black eyes.

Anne-marieNoble&SukiCat

anne-marieNobleDSukiCatBengal

fierceBabySuki

Above is a fierce baby Suki! Below is some artwork.

Suki2

 

by

US and Drugs

TruthThery

Posted by Truth Theory

(ANTIMEDIA) — A groundbreaking new study shows that magic mushrooms may actually be an effective treatment for people with depression. Researchers from Imperial College London found that patients taking psilocybin, the psychoactive compound that occurs naturally in magic mushrooms, showed reduced symptoms weeks after treatment following a “reset” of their brains.

It always makes me wonder when this country will ever make peace with drugs and drug culture in order to actually use drugs for good purposes. In reality I don’t expect that to happen. As a country we are quite juvenile—we’ve never quite grown up. Moderation and facts are not things we are partial to. That and the patriarchal society of government. Big Daddy. The “kids” can’t be allowed to have such things available. The fear is that the whole country would end up in one mad orgy of drugs. Not just the factions that have them now. Unregulated in the underground.

The greatest success marker for illegal drugs: Drug Kingpins. By keeping drugs illegal—natural or manufactured—we keep the drug cartels in business.

This reminds me of R.D. Laing, psychiatrist, and his experiments. He worked with and studied psychosis. He had great success with LSD and psychotics, especially schizophrenia. This was back in the 1970s and 80s. His was a radical approach and went against the popular thinking of the day. (No surprise there.) I believe a few in the field today have begun to look at the possibility of natural drugs in the treatment of mental illness. Some progress has been reported. But Laing did more than just use drugs. He worked with the patients as partners. He listened to them, communicated with them. What were they trying to communicate? What or who were they communicating with?

Ah yes, let’s open The Doors of Perception.