… we unearthed some crab mac and cheese from the freezer last …night… so good… had seconds and did more snacking than i should have… also, a couple of vodka tonics and wine… all together, a bit calorific… more exercise yesterday than other days…
… just looked up the weather… mid 90’s through Sunday, when temps are projected to hit 100… not so unusual this time of year…
… some struggle with Lightroom yesterday… but got work done… wound up with not much to do in afternoon…
… HCR about SS deletion of texts from Jan 5 and 6… about 45 still trying to overturn election… about the election fraud investigation in Georgia… Arizona House Speaker Rusty Bowers being formerly censured by the Arizona Republican Party… for doing the right thing… protests in front of the Supreme Court where a number of legislators were arrested, including Carolyn Maloney, AOC… Lauren Robel filing a misconduct complaint against Todd Rosita who went on Fox News and said the doctor treating the ten year old rape victim had not done proper filings with the state when she had… the house passing a bill to protect gay marriage… will the senate follow?… 54 Republicans unwilling to go on record against gay marriage… 70% of all Americans and 55% of Republicans support gay marriage… including, i recently learned… Liz Cheney…
… then there is the Idaho Republican party which has included a plank in it’s platform that abortion is illegal in all circumstances, including those in which the mother’s life is at stake and the fetus won’t survive … Scott Herndon, running for the Idaho Senate sponsored the platform amendment saying…
“For the last 49 years we have essentially lost the argument in the culture because we have focused on abortion as the termination of a pregnancy and not the termination of a living human being,” Herndon said to fellow delegates, according to the Idaho Capital Sun. “We will never win this human rights issue, the greatest of our time, if we make allowances for the intentional killing of another human being.
… a man of course… doesn’t have to deal with the consequences… how could any woman support such a stance unless blinded by the Christian Patriarchy… this kind of stupidity makes the best case against religion of any kind… so much unnecessary suffering…
… another article reviewing the landscape of abortion battles across the nation… suggest sthat several polls show Dems picking up momentum in spite of Biden Administration poor approval ratings and a number of issues that normally drive voters away from the party in power… this all actually has the feel to me of an issue that will rapidly settle itself into national legislation as the horror stories start to proliferate… question is… who will be in control after 2024…
Among overall registered voters, 41 percent said they would prefer to see a Democrat-controlled Congress after the midterms, while 40 percent said they would opt for a Republican-controlled one. Republicans led by 1 percentage point among likely voters. The poll was based on responses from 849 registered voters in early July.
… this from an article on John Coltrane’s A Love Supreme and Buddhism…
Most music has a structure and purpose leading to a resolution.
… this struck me immediately as a condition of life… we want structure, purpose and resolution… so much of our entertainment industry is built on telling stories with structure, purpose and resolution… but what if such a thing is an illusion at best?… we are only passing through… there is nothing about individual lives that is a resolution to anything… we are all part of a greater flow and we do our best to swim within that flow in ways that give us hope and purpose… or at least i do… lately i have struggled with hope… struggled with purpose… in part… this is a condition of getting older… as time on earth runs short, we wonder what our purpose was?… we wonder, was there any meaning to it?… more from the article…
One can engage the sand mandala on many levels; its beauty, its precision, the mastery required to produce it, or the patterns and protection it offers towards awakening. But in the end, we cannot hold onto any of these as the mandala is destroyed and dispersed as a reminder of our own impermanence and return to our primordial source.
… i come to the end of my personal feeds so i suppose it might be time to go for a walk… make some pictures… get a coffee or hot chocolate… maybe down by the river today…
… later, after a long walk by the river… K&C… intense delicate tattooed barista at the helm this AM… she remembers me from last week… i commented on her tattoos favorably last week… still like them this week… she remembers me like we have seen each other more than once, which i don’t think we have…
… i start writing in my analog journal, then switch here… if i were to write something more penetrating, i would only need to copy it here… i don’t think the analog method offers enough perceptible benefit to make it the prevalent place to write…
… it is hot chocolate this morning… i decided the effort of the walk required it… also, needed something to feed my energy level…
… crying baby… my their voices can be so penetrating!… hard to tolerate… my immediate thought is get the baby out of here… this is peaceful morning time… why does the kid get to interrupt it that way?… it’s not a generous response… my ultimate tolerance is more generous… she walks down the aisle with her mother and gives me a charming almost smile while looking at me intently… mom takes her outside where she will be less of annoying if she cry/screams again… thank you mom…
Reading Etel Adnan, Sea and Fog, this…
Not ever hesitating, waves surge to reach human speech. They propose a truce. When we forget Ahab and converse only with Moby-Dick, the universe will manifest itself in full clarity.
… Moby Dick… one of my favorite reads… the message, forget human hubris and insanity, commune with nature, this is our salvation, or could be, if we’d dispense with appetite culture… if 45 is Ahab, are we Moby Dick?, no, we are the unwitting and unwilling among the crew… where then is Moby Dick?… the multiarchy… the misunderstood mythical beast… yes it is we who are being hunted to be extinguished…
… mother with baby, this one not a toddler, not noisy, not screaming just to hear itself scream…
… and the following paragraph from Sea and Fog…
And the sea ceased to be because it became the sea, and we stopped at the station of impermanence, and rose from our bewilderment to witness the junction of the past with the present.
… and this…
The uncontrollable desire to think the fleeting elements of the world, to fuse them into images, into words, is probably the most hypnotic of all Eros' manifestations.
… i find a Paris Review article on Etel Adnan, Sea and Fog: The Art of Etel Adnan… i read this quote…
“My writing and my paintings do not have a direct connection in my mind. But I am sure they influence each other in the measure that everything we do is linked to whatever we are, which includes whatever we have done or are doing. But in general, my writing is involved with history as it is made (but not only) and my painting is very much a reflection of my immense love for the world, the happiness to just be, for nature, and the forces that shape a landscape.”
… i think about my own practice and how i seem lost right now… i am encouraged to reengage…
Heather Cox Richardson, July 19, 2022
Idaho State GOP Says Abortion Should Be Illegal, Even When Used to Save a Woman’s Life
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