Loose Leaf Notes

1. My friend Louise wrote this on Facebook: Damn. Thousands of birds falling out of the sky worldwide, Tampa airport shutting down for a week because the earth’s poles are shifting, politicians encouraging violence and then denying responsibility when some maniac takes them up on it…. that’s it, I’ve had enough for one day. It’s time for some comic relief.

2. And then she posted THIS link.

3. A Moment of Silence with President Obama for the victims of the recent shootings in Arizona HERE.

4. After a moment of silence: “Of course, there are always going to be unbalanced people, just as there are always going to be viruses in our environment – but what most determines whether those viruses make us sick is the strength of our immune system. When it is stressed and compromised, infections can easily take hold. ~ Arianna Huffington – Arizona Shootings: Our Moment of Silence Needs to Be Followed By More Than Just Lowered Voices HERE.

5. Funny how after the recent rash of teen suicides we could come together as a country to talk about bullying but talking openly about the far right political bullying that goes so far as to advocate killing liberals is considered almost taboo. More HERE.

6. I was disappointed that Sarah Palin responded to the discourse on the shootings in Arizona by defending her use of the map with gun sights targeting Democrats (including the Congresswoman who was shot in the head) and her refrain, “don’t retreat, reload,” during the last political campaign. Not only did she neglect to elevate the discourse on the tragedy in her recent video statement, she responded by acting like a victim, scolding those who brought up the irony of her gun sight map and its bad taste.

7. I just noticed that “fault line” almost inherently implies that it’s somebody’s fault and that the phrase “incite violence” sounds like “insight violence,” which could be considered an oxymoron.

8. Dead birds in Italy (of all places) thought to have died from overeating is a joke waiting to happen.

9. “Initiatory events are those that mark a man or a woman’s life forever, that pull a person deeper into life than they would normally choose to go. Initiatory events are those that define who a person is, or cause some power to erupt from them, or strip everything from them until all that is left is their essential self. – Michael Meade mytho-poetic storyteller.

10. If I had to pick a guru it would be Michael Meade, who puts forth the idea that our blessings and our wounds are closely related and that often it is through our wounding that we find our strongest blessings. Blessing is derived from a word that means blood and can refer to something sacred. The French word “blessure” means “wound.”

11. Meade also says that we can use stories as a diagnostic tool for the psyche by paying attention to what part of a story we key into. It’s interesting to me that in the poem Twas the Night Before Christmas, I’ve always been drawn to the line “visions of sugar plums danced in their heads,” while my 2-year-old grandson Bryce is very interested the part that says “not a creature was stirring” with special emphasize on the word “creature.”

12. Shift Happens

13. Even though we currently have snow in 49 states out of 50, my blogging friend Pearl just announced this on Facebook yesterday: I bought a rope of garlic to last the winter. It’s finished so good news: Winter’s over.

More playing 13 Thursday HERE.