Loose Leaf Notes

1. My grandson Bryce made a tutorial video of how to build a robot with legos HERE.

2. The Moon Fills Out – Shy moon blushes / Late bloomer shine / From behind leafy branches / It gets braver as it climbs

3. Every time I look at the moon, it has a different poetic character and a poem starts writing itself.

4. I like writing short poems but it’s harder than it looks. You have to condense everything down to a distillation, and every word counts.  When it comes to my itty-bitty moon ditties, they are short and almost interchangeable, like a wardrobe being built on and mixed and matched pieces for new looks.

5. Joe: Is it Father’s Day tomorrow? Me: “Why, who has a father?” (neither of us.)

6. We’ve been watching Game of Thrones. After every episode, we turn off the TV, return to our lives, and face the reality that humans haven’t changed all that much and that we, sadly and currently, have our own version of a mad king.

7. You can now find a ‘Game of Thrones’ counselor near you. Yes, “Game of Thrones” therapy is indeed a thing, according to THIS CNN story.

8. Game of Thrones, which is about a web of alliances and violent dynastic struggles, is based on books by George Martin and has been described as “medieval realism.” Wikipedia says, “George Martin set out to make the story feel more like historical fiction than contemporary fantasy, with less emphasis on magic and sorcery and more on battles, political intrigue, and the characters, believing that magic should be used moderately in the epic fantasy genre. Martin has stated that “the true horrors of human history derive not from orcs and Dark Lords, but from ourselves.”

9. One of the series creators jokingly suggested it was “The Sopranos in Middle-earth.”

10. “A good leader demonstrates credibility, dependability, integrity, intelligence, humility, self-reflection, and responsiveness to concerns.  If a nation of people is under poor leadership, they begin to lose trust. Humans like and need predictability in their lives, so a leader who is brash and unpredictable creates chaos and resultant stress. Security and safety is considered a basic need (along with access to food, clean water, and sleep) in Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, so when basic needs are not being met, stress, anxiety, and dread can become regular feelings in a population of people…”  – From Jennifer Contarino Panning, a licensed clinical psychologist who coined the term “Trump anxiety disorder.” More HERE. 

11.  After writing 708 Thirteen Thursdays, these are the past ones with “Home” in the title: The Hometown Go Round,  Phone Home, Home is Where the Story Begins,13 For the Hometown, There’s No Place Like Home and Home Run.

12. In his memoir Balancing Heaven and Earth, Jungian analyst Robert Johnson explains that there are four branches of yoga that fit into Jung’s system of typology (Meyers Briggs), but only one of them is commonly known in the west: hatha yoga.   He explains that hatha yoga, a physical yoga of positions that can alter temperature, change heart rate and blood pressure and develop focused attention and control, is best suited for sensing types, of which I am not.  Also, I am also not a feeling type, which is why bhakti yoga, the yoga of devotion to a bhakti master doesn’t appeal to me either.  As a meditater, as a mind type in the Ennegram and as an intuitive in the Jungian typology, the third type of yoga that Johnson lists is a better fit for me: raja yoga, also referred to as the Mental Yoga, or the Yoga of the Mind, because of its emphasis on awareness of one’s state of mind and on silent reflection. The fourth type, Jnana Yoga, the practice of intense intellectual concentration also suits me as a thinking type – More from To Yoga or Not To Yoga, a 2014 blog post, HERE.

13.  That’s our grandson Bryce coming into home plate.

_________Thirteen Thursday