February energies

Oakland, "Fruit of the Same Tree"

A purple and yellow 914

Off to see QEII: Pick up the boy

Off to see QEII: Sustenance at Oscars

Off to see QEII: Treasure Island, preparations

Off to see QEII: Positioning for view

Off to see QEII: The anticipation, the drama unfolds

Off to see QEII: Thar she blows!
(click to enlarge, she's the shadow in the center of the circle just outside the Golden Gate Bridge)

Emeryville: Mom and Gray on his 25th Birthday!

Emeryville: Dad and Gray on his 25th Birthday!

Emeryville: Broken fire hydrant that refused to be photographed

Emeryville: Broken fire hydrant that refused to be photographed

Emeryville: Broken fire hydrant that refused to be photographed

Martinez Marina, Sacramento River, Benecia Bridge
(Ode to Otis ... wasting time...)

Yikes!

Gaia comes to stay at the refuge

A process as complex and self-referent as 'research into one's own practice' does not proceed as smoothly and directly as written descriptions seem to imply. There are periods of frustration, of low energy and absent motivation, of high energy and desire to act or to communicate with others, and so on. There are periods when it is easy to talk about what you are doing, and times when it all seems to slip away, to evaporate. That is part of the nature of any research, and particularly of investigation from the inside, of yourself for yourself.

Sometimes you feel as if you are noticing all sorts of fresh things; the world seems alive and communicative. Other times nothing seems to stand out, and attention drifts or is caught up by events. Recognition that these are natural phases is an important awareness that can assist you through such periods in your own work. Indeed it is an example of self-reference, for by being sensitised to ebbs and flows of energy, you may become more accepting of changes in energies, in what seems possible for you at any given moment.

From Researching Your Own Practice: The Discipline of Noticing
by John Mason

Pull backwards is not the same as Push

It's LLUP.

I feel like I'm being pulled backwards... with a push! Just when I thought I had a clear view ahead and could move forward on life's potentials, out of nowhere comes a line of big financial surprises. $350 here, $3,500 there. Yikes. And when I look back over my records I find that, yes, indeed it all comes back to me and my responsibility. (Where were my eyes when I was recording my records!?!) And what big fish is on that line for tomorrow...?

One flounder waiting for me, that was not my doing, was two identical $718.78 charges on my back account. Neither Kim nor I knew what they were about. Wells Fargo, our bank for this account, was immediately very helpful with the problem, and thankfully we noticed this on the day of the charges. I was able to identify the company the items were charged to and gave them a call. Speaking with one of the owners, we determined that their suspicions that my wife and I didn't really want a remote control airplane model and four model helicopters were true. Still, it was disturbing at the beginning of the conversation to have someone on the other end of the line insisting that they had spoken with me earlier that day, twice.

Ultimately I learned the store had been dubious about the on-line order when they couldn't get through on the phone number that was submitted. When they got a direct call from the "customer" they were suspicious and refused the request to instead deliver the merchandise to a different address. Both addresses they had given are in my area, and they had the 3-digit security number from the back of one of our debit cards. The toy store owner very sympathetically and helpfully gave me all the information he had, including the order's originating IP address, which I turned over to our local police that night. Not sure who to call, I called 911 -- and they were the right one to call. They sent an officer over to our house to talk and collect the information. We speculated that the bandits may be one of some recently-used taxi drivers in the area, but the officer was doubtful if they would actually be able to catch, let alone prosecute, the perpetrators.

The bank charges were removed from the account, the toy store were able to stop the shipment. That all worked out, but a scare nonetheless. Another flapping flipper in this net of financial fumbles: although we had our 2005 taxes prepared, we never actually submitted them. Got a friendly letter asking us, "What's up?" Ouch. All this and more just in the last 3 weeks. I pray these things are the climax and not foreshadowing.

A thread throughout my life is that whenever I have a sense of accomplishment, of getting somewhere, life reminds me that is an illusion, an imbalance. It's not that I don't get things done or never arrive, instead it is that sense of having finished and passed to somewhere of reduced obligations that is to be corrected. I can check-off items on my to-do list, but the list never gets shorter -- sometimes it appears longer! If I cannot control or even manage what's to come, at least I can take refuge in simple honesty!