A Moment of Reprieve How Are You Holding Up?

 

Camas flowers 

  

An open field exists not far from our house that somebody, I don’t know who, sneaked in when I wasn’t looking, leveled a parking place into the field, graveled it, and put boulders around the periphery so cars wouldn’t drive past the parking area.  Yesterday, my husband and I parked—not the way we did when we were dating—this was in broad daylight, sunny and warm, and we saw a walking path covered with wood chips that looped around the field where a couple of people were exercising their dogs.

It tickles me to see a large man leading a teeny tiny dog; the man saunters, the dog looks like he has a centipede under his belly, for he makes about a hundred mincing steps to the man’s one.

Such was an elderly gentleman and his dog who exited the path near our vehicle. We greeted each other, and the dogs greeted each other through the car window. His dog was the cutest little thing, an all black Yorkshire Terrier. You know how we use a baby voice when greeting a teeny dog? Anyway, the man told us that he had lived his entire life in the house that abutted this field, and that his grandfather had once owned the property, which was about 100 acres.

To the south of the field, a large residential housing area had bloomed in what was once an expanse of Camas flowers. This field would be like that, he pointed to the houses, but it was once a nomadic Native American campsite, and that saved the field.

Camas plants have large edible bulbs, which was one reason the Native Americans were drawn to this part of the Willamette Valley. The man told us that they would dig a pit, bury the bulbs, build a fire above the bulbs, and leave the buried trove for a day or so. 

When they dug up the bulbs, they would be a congealed mass, almost like a syrup, and sweet, a concoction that can be used to flavor food, and a substitute for honey, which is hard to find. Besides, a bulb doesn’t bite sting you, and the plants will propagate and those new plants will make new bulbs, and you can come back you can come back the next year and harvest all over again--that is if you don’t take all the plants the first time.

“I bet they found artifacts here,” I said.

“Oh yes, that is why the area was saved. My grandfather’s flower bed once held a mortar, a grinding stone, which he had found in the field. Many arrowheads were discovered in this area. I found one myself," he said.

Yesterday offered us a brief respite from the frustrations of the world.

 

This Leads Me to Wonder, How Are Other Households Doing?

 It became clear, for the umpteenth time this morning, that teeny irritations fill the spaces between the monstrous ones. This leaves us in a constant state of anxiety.

This conclusion popped up when I tried to wad a piece of paper, for it wasn’t really paper, and no matter how much I crumpled it, it had a memory and opened back up into its full glory. I wanted to remove a lipstick from its package, and that required scissors, for it was encased in hard PET or HDPE plastic. I don’t know why, for display? Protection? For additional frustration to our daily lives? The lipstick tube had tape fastening the top to the bottom. That should have been sufficient protection, but it wouldn’t hang on a display rack or fit neatly into a packaging/mailing box.  

Here we are drowning in plastic, suspected to harm humans. (Some attack the endocrine system and thus could harm newborn infants, and our Secretary of Health and Human Services is attacking Dunkin’ Donuts for using too much sugar. (I notice two rows of Easter candy in the grocery store. Hey, we can find sugar if we want.)

I mentioned minuscule irritations, but when we put the little ones on top of the big ones, they add up to a mountain. You know the big ones I am talking about, we have a President who thinks Gavin Newsom is the President of the United States, and our man in the White House—you know the one who bashed out a side of the structure, so he can spend oodles on a ballroom. A ballroom?! Oh, there is a rumor that it is a money-laundering scheme. (Remember, he is shrewd in Real Estate—escalate the value of property, get investors, do the work for cheaper than the money collected, and pocket the leftover money.) It amazes me that he is still our President.

 

Our White House resident lies to our faces, antagonizes our allies, insults world leaders, oh yes, and shoots people in fishing boats. (Drug smugglers? I don’t know.  So, arrest them, don’t bomb them.) He bombs a foreign country—against the law, rapes young girls—against the law—brags, manipulates, and gaslights, and he is still there. He can fart while talking to two little girls—a complete lack of decorum—and his supporters stand behind him, looking the other way. The gas and food prices are going up—he is still there. He sweeps up immigrants, sends I.C.E. into our cities, they shoot people, he defends them, and he is still there.

 

While we want to stop illicit drugs, almost every ad on TV (I never saw them until I got a new TV) is an ad for some pharmaceutical.  AI is putting out false faces of recognizable people who tell us I don’t know what, but it is becoming increasingly hard to tell truth from fiction. AND AI WANTS TO WRITE FOR US! And we didn't ask it to be in our computer and on our phones.

And we wonder why people feel crazy.

Go out, find a green field, and give yourself room to breathe.

💓💓💓💓💓💓 

Or write to me and tell me I’m all wrong.

Jo 

 

P.S. Hope for the future:  

Ah Ha, I found a photo in my camera of Camas flowers taken at my daughter's place in Creswell, Oregon. They do still exist.

 

It’s Tuesday-Late in the Day Already…

Dear Characters in the Drama of Life,

I heard one novelist say she likes to throw her characters into hot water and see how they get out of it. I think some of us are suffering from burns, but we’re still here. And some of us still believe in the goodness of people.

Yesterday, on our night walk with the dogs, I commented to my daughter that we’re all immigrants unless we’re Native American, and then it dawned on me that they are, too. Scientists/historians believe they crossed the Bering Strait (between Alaska and Russia) into North America before the ocean invaded the land bridge. My daughter said some Native American DNA shows that they came from the South.

We all came from somewhere, although it appears that the Africans were created on the spot.  

It’s been a mine-cart/roller coaster ride, hasn’t it?

I am launching a new website this week.

Just what the world needs, right? 

Another website.

Yes, we need magic, fun, and laughter back in our lives.

And after all my years of writing, I need one that pays for its keep. Not that I’m charging you guys, but I am offering some mind stuff, and physical stuff for sale—all optional.

Think of this: your mind can create the fragrance of freshly made sourdough bread that runs through my site. I know bread has been maligned, but sourdough is the very best for you, and the scent and taste are subline, so when I read a novel that kept describing the fragrance of sourdough and gave a recipe for making your own sourdough starter, I had to include the recipe.

I’m way into the day with this blog because I have spent so much time on the other site, and it is not complete, but I know how engineers work, (although I’m not one) they are still dinking with their product as it is being pushed onto the display floor. Yesterday, I got immersed in my story, Where Tigers Belch, by rewriting it, cleaning it up, and feeling a respite from the cares of the world by reading it. I wanted to include it on my new site.

Today, I put in a Table of Contents, it got screwed up, so I took it out. It only has 10 short chapters, so it doesn't need one. I posted Where Tigers Belch, some time ago on this site, you may have read it, but for those who haven’t, here is the new Introduction: 

Where Tigers Belch

by 

Jo Davis

 INTRODUCTION:

You might have read Paulo Coelho's book, The Alchemist, where a shepherd boy begins a quest to find a treasure and something he calls his "Personal legend."

Where Tigers Belch is another quest as a young college student sets off into the jungle to find her purpose and reason for being. The spot will be, she says, “where tigers belch.”

Have you ever had one of those days where you felt off? You were out of sorts, irritable, thinking nothing was going right? You were mad at the world and mad that things weren't going according to plan. You were angry that you aren't further along on your enlightenment trail, and wondering what enlightenment is anyway.

You could search for years and never find that spot where the tiger belches, where you are calm and believe all's right with the world. It is the place where you feel invincible. 

I understand the gap. Best to back off. Go into your hut, nap, pet that baby cheetah on your bed, and listen to it purr. (I've heard that they have a purr like a lawnmower, and if they lick you, your skin will feel like it has been sanded.) Decide at that moment that you will be fresh tomorrow, and you are not going to push it today.

I've decided that tomorrow I will take my backpack. I will add a few bottles of water and a couple of sandwiches and set off to find my destiny.

This is the purpose of Where the Tigers Belch. It is an investigation into finding one’s purpose and learning that we are magnificent beings on the road to greatness.

We're not on safari here, although I wish we were. We're here to find the spot that lights our fire. That's where the tiger belches. I could say sleep, lies down, or roars, but I like Abby's lyrical poem, so I'm saying, "Where it belches."

While in Africa, Martha Beck found herself in an awkward and dangerous place. She was between a Momma rhinoceros and her baby. Standing there looking at an animal the size of a Volkswagen bus, she experienced a strange phenomenon. She was frightened, yes, but she was also elated. She was at a place she had dreamed of since childhood, and at that moment, that rhinoceros represented her one true nature. She felt that, somehow, she had come face to face with her destiny. (Between a rhino and a hard place?)

Perhaps that rhino was a talisman for her, a representation of what she could become: big, strong, able to overcome obstacles, that thing that both scares us and elates us. We hope we live to tell of it when we find ourselves in that place.

Being at a spot where a tiger belch has a gentler ring than coming face-to-face with a rhino. The purpose is the same. However, which would you rather face, a wild tiger or a wild rhino?

I don't think we can take credit for all we have produced, for I believe in muses and divine intervention.  However, we can take credit for searching. I search for my figurative or literal spot where the tiger belches.

Come along for the hike. This will be available as a Pdf to download on Travels with Jo--coming up this week. 

And now dear ones, for those who are reading my book, Your Story Matters, here is the next Chapter: (Are you still with me? Daughter dear says that people don't read, however, I figure you do.)

Chapter 51

 

Badass Training 101

 

Have you ever read a well-written story, but you felt miserable after reading it?

 

I won't tell you where I found the story I’m talking about, I read it by accident. The Title lured me. That shows the value of a good title, doesn’t it?

 

If I tell you what it was, you will read it. The author will get ten thousand hits, and publishers will think that's what people want and publish more depressing stuff. And I will be home sucking my thumb, and you will be depressed because you read about another miserable life. 

 

While I found that miserable story, I also found this:

 

It was a three-line blog by Seth Godin:

 

"How much of what we want, really want, is due to the ideas that culture has given us, and how much do we need?

 

"If a memetic desire isn't making us happy, perhaps we can find some new ideas."—Seth Godin.

 

My response? What’s a memetic?

 

I looked it up. 

 

 

“Memetics are ideas that become a kind of virus, sometimes propagating despite truth and logic."

 

A memetic belief isn't necessarily true, as rules that survive aren't necessarily fair, nor are rituals that survive necessarily necessary. 

 

These beliefs are good at surviving.

 

Isn't that odd?

Some liken a memetic belief to a virus, while others say they are more like genes, replicating themselves. Robert Aunger says, "A memetic is more like a benign parasite incapable of or reproducing without a host, and the mimetic’s host is the human brain."

 

The word was new to me, while the concept was not.

 

It was one of those facts we know to exist. It lurks in the back of your mind, irritating us without our knowing why. You know something is wrong. Our internal knowingness recognizes it as absolute nonsense, but our conscious mind is muddled.

 

We know that rules grow and reproduce until we have dogmas, governmental ones, religious ones, and metaphysical ones. Ideas get passed around, repeated, and disseminated until people speak the same jargon and spout the same opinions. That belief has taken on a life of its own. 

 

It takes a Badass not to do it.

 

Today I watched and listened to Oprah Winfrey's commencement speech at Tennessee State University, her alma mater. What a woman. She can put it out there like no one else; I was motivated, inspired, and deeply moved. 

 

When she said she had never felt out of place, not enough, or an impostor, I saw how this woman had achieved heights few women ever have, and she continues to be out there to inspire. “Start by being good to one single person every day. You can be a lifesaver to the one who receives it. Be someone's hope.”

 

Ready?

 A psychiatrist in Eugene said he had never had so many depressed patients as this year.

The other day he called his office and said, “I’m not coming back.”

You know what they say about putting on your oxygen mask first? If you run out of oxygen, you will be no help to others.

 What can I say?  What comfort can I offer to folks scared these days? I could say that all pandemics end eventually. The trouble is we don’t know when this one will or how.

 I’m wondering if somehow there was a message this pandemic was screaming at us, but our ears were closed. So instead of listening, we dropped into survival mode and started hoarding toilet paper.

 Are we waiting for someone to fix the problem then arguing over how it ought to be done?

 Are we with each other or against? We’re divided and argumentative. The veins in our necks budge from arguing over ideologies.

 I thought of this in contrast to Ester, who got into a hotel elevator and pushed the button for the top floor. Shortly after that, nine other women joined her. One woman taking over elevator control asked the others, “What floor?”

 Ester said, “I’ll have the lingerie floor, please.”

 The women started to giggle, and one woman popped up, “I’ll have the bargain basement.” Another said, “Not me; I’ll have the penthouse.” One said, “Let’s just stop at every floor and see what’s there.”

 They all got off laughing after having a grand time.

 Zig Zigler said he started the day by opening two gifts—his eyes.

 I know it’s not easy to change one’s focus from fear to optimism. However, we can move incrementally up the ladder toward feeling good.

 Is it possible that our consciousness had something to do with a virus that got out of hand?

Not possible? What if it was?  What if we believe we can lick this thing? What if our attitude would have some effect on the outcome? What if we believe that our immune systems can take us to the penthouse? (On earth, not heaven.)

 I’ve talked about the brain many times--how we have a brain stacked on a brain on a brain and how we drop into the Reptilian brain in times of fear.

 I had asked my daughter the question I asked you, “Do you think metaphysically we had anything to do with this pandemic?”

 Her answer came the following day. She said, “I think it runs on fear.”

 And she followed that with, “And I think that overcoming fear is becoming the master.”

 Wow. Something to aim for.

One of our brains helps us fight the tiger. Another brain runs our bodies without us thinking about it.   “Sent an enzyme down to the stomach.” “Send a sleep chemical. Send a wake-up chemical. The cells are crying for water—make them thirsty. Breathe. Pump the heart. Send white blood cells to clean up that injury.”

 Talk about spinning plates on poles.

 And then sitting on top of all the machinery is the cerebral cortex, the thinking brain, that can analyze, plan and build empires.

 Give that big thinking brain a problem, and it will find a solution—not always the best solution, but it will come up with something. And then brains got together and created the computer to speed up problem-solving ability.

 We have all felt emotion in our heart space, and indeed, some say the heart has a brain. In times of trouble or joy, we have felt a hit in our solar-plexus, so we know something is responding there. And who hasn’t felt as though every cell in the body was tinkling with life?

 We are warriors.

 We are going to take care of each other. We’re going to encourage the light, not the darkness. We’re going to trust that it will tell us to go here or there. Eat this. It will help our immune systems.

 We have become so chemicalized our poor tiny cells must think they are swimming in toxic waste. Our ozone is struggling to hold itself together, and the plants were happy for a breather when we decreased our driving.

 What if we stopped waiting for a synthetic pill to save us and instead looked to some natural remedies? Yes, use chemistry but be reasonable about it. Don’t put weird things in our bodies. I’ve heard that in nature, where there is a toxic plant, there is also an antidote plant. For example, where we live, we have poison oak, and we also have rhododendron plants. Rhododendron tea can soothe poison oak rash.

 Many of our medicines are synthetic versions of the real thing, and we think it’s the same. However, once a doctor—he was so fascinating. I don’t remember his name. He lived in San Diego and was in a wheelchair. His office had a wall of supplements and an aisle in front of them where he wheeled his chair back and forth, plucking from the shelves what he thought would help his client.

 This doctor told me that the calcium from eating the plant worked better than a calcium supplement. He didn’t know why, but going through a plant added something to the calcium that made it work better in our bodies.

 We’ve heard the idea that once a people believed in planning for the seventh generation. We know that many Indigenous cultures knew to walk gently on mother earth’s back. I’ve heard that the Native Americans said they would be back, like smoke, and that they did not die in vain. They were smart enough not to kill off the buffaloes—how stupid to wipe out one’s food source. And on top of it to revere the man who killed them. A man with a gun on a horse --the buffalos didn’t stand a chance. And the people in revering this man did not respect the life of another creature.

 I’m not saying the Native Americans were perfect—they were people, and some fought other tribes. However, living close to the land did teach them some things. Like not to pollute the very earth that sustains you. Do not take more than you need. Plan for the next harvest, like tying up the Camus flowers, so that next year, when the tribe traveled through that area, they would know where the bulbs, a food source, were.

We need to treasure what we have and bless it. We need to remember that the populace keeps the corporations going, not the other way around. The public keeps the medical personal in jobs. They know it, and we know it, but somehow, we are intimidated by the big guys. (Money, bluster, and degrees does not a master make.)

We run the cogs we think are running us.

We aren’t powerless. We are powerful.

 We are worth saving.