Playing With Peonies

I haven’t done any photography for a long time. My neck and shoulders were injured and I could not hold up the camera. Then I injured ankle and balance, so I could not walk to keep up strength, so lung disease made it so just getting to the car was difficult. I have had the grace of having an I phone SE for nearly 2 years. It was FREE! Who knew the disabled financially challenged me would EVER get a cellphone, let alone an Apple Anything?! My computer broke and with it went the photo editing software and all of my image files in a place I could work with them. So, I pouted, I grieved, and I felt sorry for myself. I sucked the joy out of the whole reason I took them in the first place. I’ve been out taking images for grandchildren and friends. I can’t really see in the glass the quality of the pictures, so I am really getting practice letting go of outcomes. YIKES! My mind screams SIN Devastation, Disaster! ha! So, here are some peonies from the phone:

Debunkers, Faith, and Proof

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“Debunkers misunderstand such stories as the soon-to-be-dead brother, the appearance of the fatal-car-accident victim, and the advancing fire—all of which happened under extreme circumstances—when they ask, with a sneer, why all psychics do not get rich on the stock market, or why robust psychic phenomena cannot be made to appear in the controlled laboratory.

Putting aside for the moment the fact that psychics sometimes do get rich, and that statistically significant but humble forms of psychic phenomena do in fact appear in laboratories, the answer to why robust events like those of Twain, the widowed wife, and the Stockholm fire do not appear in the lab is simple: There is no trauma, love, or loss there. No one is in danger or dying. Your neighborhood is not on fire. The professional debunker’s insistence, then, that the phenomena play by his rules and appear for all to see in a safe and sterile laboratory is little more than a mark of his own ignorance of the nature of the phenomena in question. To play by those rules is like trying to study the stars at midday. It is like going to the North Pole to study those legendary beasts called zebras. No doubt just anecdotes.”

–Mark Twain

Walktober (4)

I am writing this morning, early. No, not early, 7:30 but it is dark and cloudy with wet from rain on the pavement, and it feels cave dark early. I have had one swallow of tea. The post then, might make more or less sense. That is the way it is.

This image has a WHOOOOOOOOOOLE lot more light than there is right now, but sort of resembles my hair’s current state. The bushy part and the bent parts, not yet the grey.

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The day before yesterday I went to a talk at the Thomas Taber Museum.

“…Sieminski will relate the fascinating lives of Williamsport native Myrtle Miller Anderson and her photographer husband John Alvin Anderson. For forty years, the Andersons lived on the Rosebud Reservation in South Dakota. A fascinating photographic archives developed which included portraits of Native Americans and life on the reservation, some photographs of which are now housed in the collections of the Library of Congress….”
Thomas Taber Museum Website

I both enjoyed it, for the opportunity to think and to engage and was incensed by parts of it. The incensed parts had not much at all to do with the presenter herself and more to do with the disrespect perpetuated as truth and fact unknowingly. I tend to Wrangle with that incensed part in relation to the topic and with myself that I have yet to find balance or the most right thing to do. I used the experience to look at how elders share history. I used the experience to notice how those that are called historians and those that call themselves historians, might not be. I continue to recall one elder laughing at me in my on the floor at feet search for the truest truth. Maybe I am also incensed with myself for not having worked out how to find or how to let go of a truest truth?

Maybe no matter my wishes sometimes things are just blurry.

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Sometimes we don’t know if they are poison or a cure and answer to the…cold.

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Yesterday, I found out that there might be a way to get neurology and psychiatric care for the (adult)kiddos. It’s two hours away, however if it is good and appropriate care, perhaps God will make a way. I went to pick up one of them for Fall Break from college. I got news that was distressing, though not entirely unexpected–I detached from it a bit and got a small bit of praise from the disability services coordinator. He finally stated clearly that he cannot really recall having a student as unable to do such things before and that it had been difficult for him not to see it as lack of caring. He stated that he knows differently now, but doesn’t know what to do to help him, as he can’t attend or focus long enough to find out. He then took a breath and asked my permission to be a little personal. The inner attack me committee steeled itself to rip me to pieces. And, he stated that he felt that I felt that everyone on the outside felt that my son and daughter(who attended the same college) were the way they were because I am a bad parent. That school people viewed their actions as bad behaviors that with the right will could be corrected. And that I had failed. He then stated that in case no one had told me–No other parent would drive once a week to college to attempt to help a disabled student navigate these issues so that they could express the amazing people that they are. He said that he found it amazing how I manage to keep my composure and to calmly state and restate matters if/when others didn’t understand. He said that if no one else tells me, he thinks I am a good Mom. And, that I might need to try to find a way in all that doesn’t look like it is going well, to try to remind myself of that fact. I didn’t know that I appeared as if I had not lost my composure. Yes, that is what I focused upon, the rest was out of my pay grade to process as I sat in the chair.

More about falling short and enoughness, even within truly falling short. That is a very difficult concept for me to master–anything less than mastery isn’t enough for me. Hm.

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I also took out the Patchouli, moved the sickly looking Thyme inside–in case what I have seen is dormancy, and took care of a few other outdoor chores. I returned a huge stack of library items. The librarians’ response: “Oh myyyyy, how do you manage all of that it’s only been a few weeks. You must eat and grow on information!”

PSST! Unsure of how Robin wishes the links to the Walktober Project so,