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Wednesday, December 1, 2004 |
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These words from part 3 stanza 1 of Galway Kinnell's "Freedom, New Hampshire" perfectly describe tonight's moon, up over my hill just now afloat so modest from behind its sheer veil of fog:
Once I saw the moon |
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Pentagon's lies to news media about war come under fire Los Angeles Times Remember the controversial Office of Strategic Influence (OSI), which was closed after it was revealed the office intended to plant false news stories in the international media? "Officials say that much of OSI's mission -- using information as a tool of war -- has been assumed by other offices throughout the U.S. government," reports Mark Mazzetti. "These efforts have set off a fight inside the Pentagon over the proper use of information in wartime." One official tells Mazzetti: "The movement of information has gone from the public affairs world to the psychological operations world."
--from this morning's Poynteronline Romenesko column |
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I recall only a couple of things from a little brush I had with Rosicrucianism when I was 17 (a California friend used to forward her monthly exercises to me in the mail). One is an exercise for developing patience: Empty a full box of stick matches on a tabletop. Organize them neatly. Then do it again. And again. Until you think you'll scream. And then do it again. And again. Until it just is something you're doing. The other thing that stuck with me is the notion--what is its origin?--that from birthday to birthday comprises a cycle of seven neat segments of 52-and-a-fraction days. Each specific segment was best-suited for or provided the ideal time or vibration (?) for a certain kind of life circumstance. I can't recall all seven, only the two most obvious--the last 52 days and the first 52 days. The last being a time of good-byes, the most likely time for losing a job or ending a relationship or experiencing a health crisis or financial loss. I'm well into my last 52-day segment, gaining speed toward the 27th of December, the day I will turn--coincidentally--52. Regardless of the foregoing system's validity, or lack thereof, I feel strongly that I'm passing through a turning point, that the next 11 months or so will mark my changeover time, my slide into the final, culminating stage of my life. I've already loosened my geographical grip. Can't wait to see where I go from here. *** Once I remembered how to change over to 4-wheel-drive yesterday, I sailed out of the snowy premises without a single slip or slide, laying down the first tracks in a virgin quarter-mile of deep snow without the aid of studded tires. They were stacked in the back of the pickup for ballast, and in town I nipped over to Les Schwab, where they swapped them on for free in about 10 minutes. So I'm set for the winter, with no dread of the weather: Bring it on. Tomorrow I have my 11 a.m. appointment at the Centre for Natural Healing in Ashland. I'm not sure of my route yet, nor even of how far away that might be--five or six hours?--but if I chicken out, Jonathan Treasure will do a phone consultation, a full 90-minute interview. I've been a little under the weather since Thanksgiving; I think my liver is clogged with all that fat. Probably I just need to go out in the sunshine and inhale a few times. Drag myself up a hill and take a picture. Blow out the cobs. *** Current morning reading includes--Beyond Belief (Pagels), Becoming a Poet (Kalstone on Bishop-Moore-Lowell), The Music of What Happens (poetry criticism of M. Vendler). Left behind unfinished recently but sure to come back online soon are Woman Who Glows in the Dark (Elena Avila) and Making Your Own Days (Kenneth Koch). At night I'm rereading On the Poet and His Craft (Roethke) and dipping into some Galway Kinnell.
I've been up in my tower cell all morning. It's time to descend, feed the Goddess, and shuffle the paperwork of daily life until it starts to make sense--to me, anyway. |
