A Smoke Signal

A publisher said, “Utterly delightful.”

“Utterly, utterly.” I love that word. Stephen King says not to use adverbs, that is ly words. Nope, nope, nope. Use them.  I find “utterly delightful,” lovely, beautifully delicious, stupendously satisfying.

I signed a contract with a publisher yesterday, August 6, for The Frog’s Song.

I said when I got a book published I would send smoke signals. This is a preliminary Puff, for the book, more than likely, will not be out for 24 months.

I told daughter number one that I thought it took 9 months to publish a book, like having a baby.  “This one will take 24 months.”

 She said, “That’s having an elephant.”

Ms. lovely publisher said we might pare the time down to 12 months depends on the editing and such.

While the editors and I hash out the content, the Publishing House will decide the title and the cover art—can’t wait to see what they come up with.

However it turns out, it is our Island experience, our One Year on The Island.

That 24-month time frame with the publisher will include six months in which the completed work will be in the hands of advance reviewing agencies such as Booklist, Foreword, Publisher's Weekly etc. Those agencies require six months before official release.

Whatever, I’m going with it.

I will try to stay alive to see the end result.

Will people be buying books in two years?

This morning I bought a used book for 50 cents. That amount wouldn’t cover the cost of the ink. Self-publishing a paper-bound book costs around $8.00. Perhaps a publisher can beat that. It’s a numbers game.

As you know, a digital version doesn't cost much to release, or to buy. The wave of the NOW.

The Frog’s Song, now referred to as, “The Work,” will come out as a printed book and as digital.

In two years I will build a bonfire, use a huge blanket, and send signals that rival clouds.

The Photographer's Note for the statue titled “Smoke Signal.”

"It is one of the most widely known landmarks of Pioneers Park in Lincoln, NE by Ellis Burman. Smoke Signal" was created by Burman with funding from President Franklin Roosevelts’ Works Progress Administration Program.

"This program helped provide jobs and stimulate the economy during the years of the Great Depression. When Burman applied and was found eligible for WPA funding, he suggested that a huge statue of a Native American be placed in Pioneers Park.

"He formed a 15 ft tall clay model working in an unheated vacant building at the fairgrounds.

"The winter weather of 1934/35 combined with an unheated studio caused Burman a few delays because the clay kept freezing.

"When completed, a mold was made and reassembled at the park site. Cement was poured into the mold and was colored with red oxide to give it a bronze color.

"Smoke Signal" weighs a whopping 5 tons. The entire bill for materials to the City was only $50. "Smoke Signal" is a memorial to Nebraska Tribes and depicts a Native American pulling a blanket away from a fire to produce a smoke signal - a signal devised to communicate across the vast expanses of the plains. 

"When the dedication took place in 1935, it drew a huge crowd, with over 100 native Americans attending. In full dress, Chiefs from the Omaha, Winnebago, Sioux, and Ponca Tribes atop their horses lined the hillside to face the sun as it set. It is reported that the celebration and gathering of Native Americans lasted several days beyond the dedication, and that those who remained feasted on buffalo meat from the park herd."

Why are we moved to tears by a work of art?

Why do we glory at a sunrise or sunset?

Why do we stand in wonder as we watch a mother doe with her fawn?

We laugh at the antics of toddlers and puppies and appreciate their wonder and beauty.

What is it in the human being that causes them to stand in awe?

We are a glorious lot that doesn’t know we are.

“The problem with the world,” said Mahatma Gandhi, “is that humanity is not in its right mind.”

Do you hear the wonders mostly? Or do you hear the thunder of the marketplace?

Once I had a conversation with a lady that worked at Nikon Inc. She told me that she had watched conception in a petre dish, and at the moment the sperm entered the egg it emitted a glow.

Isn’t that awesome?

What is life?

I put forth a similar question in the last blog and received an answer. “Go to Curiositystream, find Jason Silva and “The Road To The Singularity”

“All will be made abundantly clear.”

I love feedback.

“Abundantly clear?!” That’s a huge claim.

I soon found that the road to singularity was that moment when Artificial Intelligence takes over.

Well, hey, I saw the movie 2001.

But he had a point."Have Artificial intelligence in you instead of controlling you.

However, I am going the organic route.

(Not entirely. I have a computer and a cell phone. I use electric and gas appliances. I love having ice made in my house—remember the Hawaiian experience of no refrigerator? Not fun.)

I want to look into a leaf, that that glistens with morning dew, and see that cell factory with its ability to photosynthesize its own food from minuscule nutrients, sometimes called fertilizer, water, and sunlight, and wonder at a majesty that far exceeds anything humans have done.

And so we chop down the tree, a powerhouse made strong out of those three ingredients, and use its lumber to build our homes. We burn its wood to keep warm, and from those simple ingredients, it has amassed enormous energy that we can use while we play our video games and dream that technology will save us.

Yes, it is easier for humans to manipulate things.

Humans are smart enough to build structures that our delicate little hands cannot possibly lift. We can create atom busters, map the Geone, and build robots that can make our lives easier, including replacing limbs and hearts.

What about the soul?

Could that be the spark we wonder about when we see life burst forth?

We can look inside ourselves and wonder why we have such awesome ability to create and to appreciate while also having the ability to destroy.

While some are standing in awe, others are torturing and killing.

Why is that?

It's tough work acknowledging the shadow and taming it.

It is much easier to build a machine we believe is smarter than us and can solve our problems.

Instead, we might wonder how we built fertile ground for the shadow to flourish.

Why would students if given a choice to be jailers or prisoners, choose to be prisoners, and then those chosen as the jailors, soon became cruel to their classmates?

Why would a psychological experiment, go awry and need to be stopped because people would obey orders to the extent of shocking an innocent party because they gave an incorrect answer. The ones giving the shock followed orders. They didn’t want to upset the power structure.

The upside of that experiment was that 35% of the subjects refused to do it.

That gives us hope.

One could say that we don’t know any better. We could say we are victims of our evolution or perhaps even of genetic tampering.

Marianne Williamson proposes that we are traumatized at such a deep level that we don’t even know we are in trauma.

Williamson writes: “At times, a person—sometimes even whole nations—can become so sucked into the black hole of lovelessness as to be at the effect of its most extreme, even heinous intentions, for this thing, which is actually a no-thing, is not inert.

“Human consciousness is like a pilot light that never goes off. 

"The problem is it is used to create either a life-producing heat or a life-destroying configurations.

“Where there is no love, there is fear. And fear, once it had gripped the mind, is like a vice that threatens to crush the soul.”

I am wondering if this force some call the shadow can be tamed.

“Remember how my daughter says, “It’s all about horse training.”

A horse can be beaten into submission, and I suspect so can the mind, but both would be unreliable.

What we want is a trustable partner.

A horse, if left alone in a corral with a human (And is run a bit, so it is tired and thus turns its attention to the human) will eventually figure out that the safest place to go is beside the human. He will “Join up,”to use Monty Robert’s term, and walk dossel out of the corral behind the human.

Perhaps the shadow can be that way as well, instead of trying to overpower it, allow it to go to the safest place, with you in love, like a child holding your hand.

No Pictures, Just me

Why did I go from 10 blog views one day to 1700 the next?

Maybe that I have ratcheted my honesty up a notch.

Maybe it’s a fluke.

Maybe someone wants to read what I have written.

Did I have some word in there that Google caught?

Whatever, I’m here with new vigor and a belief that we are the ones to make a brighter day.

You and me—us.

There is enough pussyfooting around with stuff we’ve heard 50 million times.

Maybe I’m not coming up with something you’ve never heard before, but you haven’t heard it from me, and I haven’t heard it from you, so I don’t know where you stand.

Except that I believe together we add to the whole.

I believe our knowledge contributes to the SOURCE.  Of course, you might believe that your God knows everything, so that’s a mute point.

But consider the possibilities. If It/He/She/The Great Spirit/the Higher Power needs us to experience and to deliver the goods, then we ought to get crackin’.

Crumb, we can sit around and watch our tee-vees, and drink our corn-syrup augmented drinks, or we can go out there and live.

That’s what we are here for.

What is living anyway?

We know the Power Structure doesn’t want us to have too much fun doing it. Why do you think we are numbed on food, drink, entertainment, propaganda, and belief that we don’t know, but THEY do. And they are going to tell us. Whoever in the heck “they” are.

It’s all about control.

I’m no spring chicken. I realize I now think in decades, and that’s rather fun. I also realize that out of decades I ought to have something to say.

You know how hard it is to engage people in deep subjects?

Oh, I don’t want to go into any discussion on Politics—that’s for old men who like to argue.

I want to go into stuff, like “What new stuff have scientists come up with lately? What’s out there? Who’s out there? What happens when we die?”

I had a dream once, a clear concise dream where an uncle came to me clear as day, I saw his face just as I remembered him, and he said, “It doesn’t hurt to die.”

He asked if I wanted to know more, and while I was fumbling with this possibility, he disappeared.

Well, rats. But I believe that was real.

I believe.

“I believe for every drop of rain that falls flower blooms.

I believe that in the darkest night, a candle glows.

I believe for everyone who goes astray someone will come to show the way…” (Ervin Drake, Irvin Sherman, Jimmy Shirl, Al Stillman, 1953)

I believe.

Are we still believing?

What is it With Sand Dunes?

First I must tell you, that in response to our inland trip to Sisters, Oregon, an Oregonian told me the name of The Three Sisters Mountains. They are Faith, Hope and Charity. And he asked if I knew why they named a lake Senoj. The name isn’t misspelled nor is it a Native American name. Can you figure out the answer? (I will tell you in the next blog.)

Okay onto the coast trip. Here we go.

On our last Oregon Coast trip, we began in Eugene and aimed north. You might have read about it, the Cannon Beach, Beverly Beach trip.

This time we aimed south. We spent the night in Reedsport. I won’t tell you that I mixed up the dates and ended up at midnight with no room at the Inn. 

However the kind lady at Expedia, with an accent I couldn't understand, along with my late night head, and ears filled with the sound of the car's motor,  fixed it, the kind desk lady interpreted, and we did have a bed at a different Motor Lodge.

Oh, I just told you?

Well, all ended well.

I would say if you want to see pretty towns and boutique shops aim North from Eugene, that way you will hit Florence, and Newport Beach, and my favorite Cannon Beach.

We must go further north sometime to Seaside. I was there when I was about 11 years old. I remember lying on the beach with my mother, and it was the first time I had seen the ocean. 

Much has changed since then.

Okay, on to the south.

There is a 40 mile stretch from Florence on down south where sand dunes form.

With Reedsport and Winchester Bay being the heart of dune country.

Oh yes, Winchester Bay is where we stopped for an iced latte’ at a little bakery that served blueberry scones with so much fruit each scone weighed in at about a pound.

The strip of land east of the Cascades is where the big trees reign, and I cherish them, and worry if I see a spindly one. But those southern trees were healthy, abundant and beautiful.

I guess I want people to know that Oregon isn’t all treed, and that our strip west of the Cascades is fragile. 

Here we go

Oh, there you are Miss Beautiful Pacific

 

At Reedsport, we drove down a long “spit.” Yep, it was called that. The spit stretched out alongside the river to the ocean. And there were the sand dunes, being used as ski slopes for the sand dune riders.

I wondered about how the dunes were made and why they were there and knew it was the play of wind but didn’t know much more.

Now I know that sand grains roll and skip, until they meet an immovable object, like a shrub. I read that they can even begin as an ant hill. The sand stacks up until it reaches such a height that it collapses upon itself, forming a windward side and a slip side. This is its angle of repose, where it is stable, usually 30-34 degrees.

Yep, the wind blew. I felt like I had spent the day in a convertible. Once I thought that a convertible would be fun, so we rented a jeep in Hawaii. Wow, talk about feeling beaten up.

Many RVs and campgrounds existed along the spit and even a horse camp where the campgrounds supplied wooden corrals for the horses to allow them free-time off a rope.

I was amazed to see so much water, lakes and ponds sitting right on the sand. How that happened is a mystery to me, but there they were dry sand and wet water. 

This lake was pretty. It reminded me of our estuary (didn’t belong to us, I just claimed it) in Hawaii that existed alongside the ocean at Black Sands Beach, and sported water lilies, and a ducky.

We drove to Bandon, where we had lunch. See our little Sweetpea peeking out from behind Dad’s legs?

In Bandon we saw the greatest chainsaw carving I have ever seen—a T-Rex.

Coming home we drove back to Reedsport and inland through Elton where the magnificent elk grazed right alongside the road, And you could get out and watch them, contented as tame cows.

In The Medicine Cards, by Jamie Sams & David Carson, the elk teaches us that pacing ourselves will increase our stamina. The elk has little defense against a mountain lion except his ability to go the distance.

Elk has a curious kind of warrior energy, for except during mating season, he honors his own sex, and can, therefore, call upon the medicine of brotherhood or sisterhood.