"I of my own knowledge…"

I was writing to myself in my journal the other day: “My living is slipping through my life, unwritten, unrecorded save on the Akashic record. Why is that?” Then it occurred to me to ask! (It still slips my mind, continually, that I can always ask.)

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In rereading The Sun Also Rises, I realized for the first time that Hemingway did not admire or entirely approve of his narrator. At least, that was my conclusion. So, I asked him.

Papa? That right?

Is your narrator you, however many of your traits you may have given him? Yes, I didn’t approve of his pimping his love to Romero. It amounted to betraying himself and his aficion. “It was not pleasant,” I said, not meaning that he was misunderstood but that he was reaping where he had sowed. A man may share one of our passions as he may share our politics or our taste in art, and yet have no fundamental connection to us.

Of course. Thank you. Is there anything that we who have profited from your life and words can do for you?

Our reputations don’t mean anything to us now in terms of ego or career-building — but they do matter in that they can make it easier or harder for someone who needs us to find us. So merely spreading the word about how you see us helps us.

It is always a delicate balance, like breathing. You can’t always be breathing out, you can’t always be breathing in. If the two halves of the rhythm don’t alternate smoothly, you’ve got problems. Similarly, you’ve got to keep a balance between absorbing new material (whether by reading or other experience) and expressing what you know. At least, that’s my experience.

When I began this blog in another format in March 2007, the result of a kind and perceptive suggestion from a friend who pointed out that I was already blogging, in essence, in the amount of material I was sending out to my friends via e-mail, at first the material poured out. Already I have hundreds of pieces blogged, and potential hundreds more, because I read a lot, think a lot, talk to myself pretty continuously, and keep a journal as I have done since I was 20. That makes for a lot of material.

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“The world is too much with us; late and soon,
Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers.”

Wordsworth wrote that 200 years ago, before telegraph, telephone, radio, television, or fax machines, let alone PCs, internet and PDAs. He should see us now!

I awoke this morning dissatisfied, aware that once again I had allowed myself to shallow out, aiming my attention outward rather than inward, toward ephemeral things rather than enduring ones. Or, as Henry Thoreau puts it in “Life Without Principle”:

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Digital cameras have certainly revolutionized the orb-chasing business. This from an email via a friend, who had received it from a friend who had gone to the election night Obama rally in Grant Park in Chicago. There were more photos but I have limited the number to three (and turned them from bitmaps to JPEGs) for the sake of practicality.

“When we were on our way home from the rally Tuesday, we ran into a couple of ladies on the train that had taken some pictures I wanted to share with a few people.

“The lady who took these didn’t believe in this stuff beforehand, but does now. These are some amazing orb shots from the Grant Park rally the other night. I shot these from her camera screen with my video camera, because I didn’t have my regular camera on me at the time. But you get the gist when you see them. Lots of happy souls out there.”

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I don’t know who the person below is. This was sent me by a friend. I am going to assume it is genuine. It matches my personal experiences and those of my friends.

How I wish I could get to the people who are in fear because of this election and tell them, “be strong and of good courage, be not afraid, neither be dismayed.” We’ve done a very good thing regardless how this presidency works out.

Hello,

The world rejoices with us. I wanted to share this with every one in my address book. My daughter Brook works in Thailand and traveled back to there from a conference. The following is her report of her day yesterday.

Katherine

My dear friends,

Today I have had to travel from the island of Borneo…from SABAH and the town of Kota Kinabalu. Then to Kuala Lumpur where I had a 5 hour lay over and finally arriving very late at night in Bangkok. The election has already begun….

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She was never one of our authors, but like others in the field we are indebted to her. This obit from the New York Times. http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/05/books/05ferguson.html?_r=1&ref=obituaries&oref=slogin

Marilyn Ferguson, New Age Author, Dies at 70

By WILLIAM GRIMES
Published: November 4, 2008

Marilyn Ferguson, whose 1980 book “The Aquarian Conspiracy” became a bible of the New Age movement, died on Oct. 19 at her home in Banning, Calif. She was 70.

The cause was believed to be a heart attack, said her daughter Kristin Ferguson Smith, of Los Angeles.

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A friend’s comment on the election sent me remembering a poem I wrote years ago that is, perhaps, not nearly as true today as it was then.

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Wednesday, November 5, 2008

9:30 AM.

Mr. Lincoln, a proud day. We owe it as much to you as to anyone.

You owe it to yourselves. The angels of your better nature — as I said in my first inaugural address.

It is America becoming ever more the symbol of the world, isn’t it? That’s how I see it, anyway.

A symbol, yes — but perhaps more than a symbol. Perhaps you might say in truth and not in metaphor that is a magical miniature, still, as it was to a lesser extent in my time and as it may become to an even larger extent in times beyond yours. It is the form into which energies may be concentrated and hardened into reality.

It just feels so damn good to be proud of my country again! Not that a Democrat defeated a Republican, but that hope triumphed over fear.

It seems to me that this initial speech as president-elect strikes exactly the right tone, looking for reconciliation, cooperation and reconstruction. We’re still a fortunate people, still leading the pack.

This transcript via http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2008/11/04/politics/p215742S46.DTL

President-elect Barack Obama’s remarks in Chicago
By The Associated Press
Tuesday, November 4, 2008

Text of Democrat Barack Obama’s speech in Chicago after winning the presidential election, as transcribed by CQ Transcriptions:

OBAMA: Hello, Chicago.

If there is anyone out there who still doubts that America is a place where all things are possible, who still wonders if the dream of our founders is alive in our time, who still questions the power of our democracy, tonight is your answer.

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