Friday, January 22, 2021

I'd Like to Give The World...

 


A Puppy!

Imagine having the eager anticipation of that little boy.

On the home front:

As I drove into town yesterday morning, the tree limbs alongside the road looked as though drawn with a Quill pen using India Ink. The telephone poles were bold, black, straight, arms stretched to electrical wires. I looked to the hills beyond the grass fields and saw the dramatic layered gray of mountain ranges as often featured in black and white photographs. 

“I can see clearly now!” [(Musical notes] The day before, I had a lens clouded with cataracts removed from my right eye and replaced with an inter-ocular lens.? And then, on a different route coming from that post-opt visit, ten brilliant white egrets—stark white against emerald green—had set down in a grassy field alongside the road. I took it as a salute to my new clarity. 

I have written about Vision Training, where specific relaxation techniques or exercises can help a person see better. However, cataracts are another thing, coming with age or U.V. damage. As I drove, I noticed my hands on the steering wheel were littered with brown spots—I knew they were there, but not as severe as I was seeing them. Oh dear, this is serious, I see the crumbs and lint in the crevasses of the car’s console. 

I felt like the protagonist in one of Ray Bradbury’s short stories, a myopic hero suddenly put on glasses, and images, previously unknown to him, suddenly popped into view. Pores on people’s faces particularly annoyed him. 

I’m not annoyed. I love seeing. I’m a happy camper.

On the world front:

One thing I wanted to mention. Have you noticed that we tend to get a cold or flu when we are stressed? 

This stress can be physical–we’re exhausted, we’re over-extended ourselves in work, or with exercise. We got over-chilled. We didn’t sleep, we’ve been eating a lot of junk, we’re worried, be it with finances or world conditions. Our relationships suck, or we had some physical malady that concerned us. We’re mad at somebody, enraged that they hurt us, feel bullied and victimized. We’re concerned for our kids or our lot in life. We’re generally disgruntled and hate those people who think differently from us. And What happens? The flu develops into a pandemic.

I’m not saying that the people who caught the flu are responsible for catching it—people do pick up germs, and sometimes the germs win. (I’m sorry.) I’m proposing that the virus got to critical mass because of how we’ve been, how we’ve treated other people, how polarized we’ve been. We’ve been stirred up and kept in that state of agitation for a long time. That makes fertile ground for illnesses. 

It’s a thought. I could be all wet.

What do you think?

P.S. According to a neurosurgeon, John E. Sarno, “If an imbalance occurs on a spiritual level and is not addressed, it will move to a mental level. If it is not addressed there, it will move to an emotional level. If it is not addressed there, it will move to a physical level, where it is very difficult to ignore.

Tuesday, January 19, 2021

Tuesday--From the Top of the Mountain


 

Last night, on the eve of Martin Luther King Jr. Day, as I searched the internet for his “I Have a Dream Speech, “I got distracted.

I watched and listened to John F. Kennedy’s inaugural address and Barack Obama’s farewell speech as he handed over the reins of power.

I heard men with the power of words move a nation to do more than they thought possible. I heard men who dreamed a dream bigger than themselves say that we are all Americans and that Unity and togetherness have made us strong.

I heard a man inspire people to do the impossible—send a man to the moon and safely bring him back by the end of the decade.  (“Not because it is easy,” he said, “but because it is hard.”) These men had leadership qualities and the power of oratory to bring about change and advancement. And to make our hearts sing.

They made us proud.

Kennedy’s kids went out into the world via the Peace Corps to work alongside farmers in third-world countries to help them find a better way.

I saw President Dwight D. Eisenhower, a military man who had implemented the military’s desegregation that Truman had signed, a Republican, welcome a young Democrat into the White House with an open hand and a smile.

And then I heard the man who had a dream say that we hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal. That was 58 years ago, in 1962, that Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. gave his “I Have a Dream” speech.

He said it wasn’t a time for black people to blow off steam and return to usual, but to continue until we all sing together from the Black Spiritual,

“From every mountain top, let freedom ring.”