From this morning’s walk…

Two golden colored leaves on concrete sidewalk. There is wetness cutting across the upper left corner which has shifted color of concrete to blue.

Mirror ball sparkling with illumination hanging in a shop window. Corner of a pink pillow at lower left of frame.

Gauzy neglige hanging in shop window.

Tree planting well with tree trunk and circle of bricks around trunk. Illuminated from the left side by car lights.

Latest addition to every day mandala series…

Mirror ball with almost black background.

Greed is rightly considered a “deadly sin” because it erodes the moral values that encourage us to care for the common good. Greed violates the spirit of connectedness and community that is natural to human survival. It wipes out individual recognition of the needs and concerns of everyone, replacing this awareness with harmful self-centeredness. Healthy narcissism (the self-acceptance, self-worth, that is the cornerstone of self-love) is replaced by a pathological narcissism (wherein only the self matters) that justifies any action that enables the satisfying of desires. (bell hooks, All About Love)

The will to sacrifice on behalf of another, always present when there is love, is annihilated by greed. (bell hooks, All About Love)

… when we are deeply imbedded in an economic system that is all about greed and exploitation, does love stand a chance?…

However, emotion is a critical part of our capacity to comprehend the world at all, the ability to understand and interact with other living beings. Without it we are foolish, however much we may know, and we are only alive in a diminished sense of the word. (Iain McGilchrist, The Matter With Things)

Curiosity as an Instrument of Love: Thoreau and the Little Owl – The Marginalian

It is only when we cede emotional attachment that we can be truly free from judgment, for all judgment is feeling — usually some species of fear — masquerading as thought. And when we judge, we cannot understand. True curiosity is therefore a form of love, because, as the great Zen teacher Thich Nhat Hanh so plainly and poignantly put it, “understanding is love’s other name.”

… it took a long time for me to have the courage to go bold with my lipstick…

Headshot of caucasian man with black headband, green thick crystal frame glasses and orange red lipstick.

… all up to date on COVID and Flu shots…

… feeling a little sad and lethargic today…

… standing in line at the local bagel shop, i noticed a woman with the most wonderful chromium blue nails… i complimented her on her nails and showed her my chromium orange/red nails… we talked nails for a bit… then we talked about how long we have lived in Beacon… me, for almost 20 years, she, since 2021 as a refugee from the pandemic… i was wearing one of my favorite dresses and an orange red lipstick to match my nails… i was in full fem mode… it was wonderful to have such a normal and natural feminine to feminine conversation…

From this morning’s walk… we are getting into predawn images illuminated by street lights and other light sources…

Early morning. Parking lot and grassy embankment. Timber wood fence with gap on top of embankment. Landscape beyond in deep shadow.

Early morning. Utility pole and side of a brick building illuminated by the light held up by the utility pole but not in the frame.

Inside of an ice cream shop. Illuminated drinks refrigerator shines light on a chair and table in front of it.

Today’s look…

My trans-feminine headshot. I am wearing a batik headband, black medallion necklace and v-neck sweater. I have an orange red lipstick on my lips. I am wearing dark blue, thick frame glasses.

Love is Central

Dialogue cannot exist, however, in the absence of profound love for the world and for women and men. The naming of the world, which is an act of creation and re-creation, is not possible if it is not infused with love. Love is at the same time the foundation of dialogue and dialogue itself. It is thus necessarily the task of responsible subjects and cannot exist in a relation of domination. (bell hooks, Feminist Theory)

What is required is an attentive response to something real and other than ourselves, of which we have only inklings at first, but which comes more and more into being through our response to it – if we are truly responsive to it. We nurture it into being; or not. In this it has something of the structure of love. (Iain McGilchrist, The Matter With Things)

… these two highlights appeared in my daily Readwise review… it is so interesting when two amazing authors writing from different perspectives arrive at the same clearing in the metaphorical woods… a sign we should pay close attention… love may not be all you need, but it is central to a deeply satisfying presence in the cosmos…

Fear of Dying

At a much more mundane level, is it not the fantasy of modern man – and woman – to defy time? Puritan diets, punitive exercise regimes, hair transplants, plastic surgery, cryogenics? An embargo on serious conversation about the fact that we are all born to die – quite soon? And that the meaning of life lies in its quality, not its quantity? Time and death are, it seems, our constant sources of anxiety and fear. (Iain McGilchrist, The Matter With Things)

Death is among us. To see it always and only as a negative subject is to lose sight of its power to enhance every moment. (bell hooks, All About Love)

… in recent years, and particularly since moving into feminine expression, i have become less afraid of death… even as i move closer to it…

… i am less worried about what lurks behind every anomolas change in my body…

… not really freaked out at all…

… can i attribute this, at least in part, to the completeness i am finding as i let my feminine blossom?…

… i think so…

something weird related to my account going on… @help

50 please vote cards down, 50 more to go…

The anonymous authors of Women and the New World suggest that wages for housework is “a proposal that takes us even further down the road of capitalism since it brings us into the marketplace and puts a price on activities which should fulfill human needs and not just economic independence for women.” (bell hooks, Feminist Theory)

… how do we value work?… by the good it does and the bad it doesn’t do… how much of the work done under capitalism would be highly valued by this standard?…

Hmmmmmmm…

The true harbinger is not the man who offers a system when no one wants it, but rather the man who precipitates Chaos, its agent and incense-bearer. (Emil M. Cioran, Richard Howard (Translator), Eugene Thacker (Foreword), A Short History of Decay)

Hmmm…

Our passive acceptance of lies in public life, particularly via the mass media, upholds and perpetuates lying in our private lives. In our public life there would be nothing for tabloid journalism to expose if we lived our lives out in the open, committed to truth telling. Commitment to knowing love can protect us by keeping us wedded to a life of truth, willing to share ourselves openly and fully in both private and public life. (bell hooks, All About Love)

Anyone that is misguided enough to reject science must have a very limited imagination, as well as being blind to many beautiful truths, and will make many errors. But the same is true of anyone who accepts only science. For it can also become a tool that banishes wonder, stunts imagination and narrows down understanding, before closing the mind altogether. (Iain McGilchrist, The Matter With Things)

September 13, 2024 - by Heather Cox Richardson

… what do false accusations of Haitian pet eating and the Wounded Knee Massacre have in common?…

Fueled on false stories of “savages” who were attacking white settlers, the inexperienced soldiers were the ones who pulled the triggers to kill more than 250 Lakotas on December 29, but the Wounded Knee Massacre started in Washington, D.C.

… politics is an amoral business… nobody should want to be a politician… anyone who does is suspect…

Kamala Harris receives the endorsement of Aliens from space…

Kamala Harris votive candle, alien doll putting its finger to its lips in a silence gesture, assorted items in a shop window.

Today’s look…

Selfie, my feminized male self… I am wearing a floral blouse, black and white, hair down to my shoulders, black head band, brass colored bead necklace, coppery lipstick and blue thick rimmed glasses.

So, the strawberries are normal to large size. The blueberries are giants. And swee too!

4 pint containers, 2 with strawberries and 2 with blueberries. Blueberries are unusually large.

… don’t know if i have shared this before… but it bears repeating even if i have…

Widespread cultural acceptance of lying is a primary reason many of us will never know love. It is impossible to nurture one’s own or another’s spiritual growth when the core of one’s being and identity is shrouded in secrecy and lies. (bell hooks, All About Love)