Spring has sprung... sort of

Sometimes writing a once a week topic for here seems so easy. It just happens and the topic is a natural. Other times, I get to Friday, like this time, and still have no idea of a solid topic.

It's not that a lot isn't going on. My own world is wrapped up in the current WIP (work in progress) where it seems I only care about the motivations of these characters. What works? What doesn't work? Whoops went too far that way and have to back up. I come up for air, look around and the world is still out there but my own awareness of it has been somewhere pushed to the back of my mind.

Even though we are still getting a lot of rain and gray days, spring is here and the first flowers are out, not as many here in the hills as when I drive into town, but it clearly is spring with leaves popping out. Last week the hummingbirds returned about a week after the vultures. We often joke that they leave and arrive at the same time and do the hummers ride the waves of the vulture's flight?

Our kids have a cabin on Klamath Lake and the birds are flocking there in record numbers as the ice seemed to leave the lake almost within a week. Their photos are inspiring but not quite enough to get us over there yet anyway.

The man who has looked after our place when we are gone is currently involved with a full time job, which means we are going to find it difficult right now to leave with so many babies on the place. 

The lambs got their creep this week (a fenced in area where they can get COB (corn, oats, barley) that they need now-- especially those part of triplets or twins. The lambs have begun running in gangs but getting a photo of them doing it is always a challenge. This first one was in the rain and only about one third of them in the image. Another photo had them running and totally out of focus even as I tried to ignored the rain on my camera lens.

 When it's sunny, they, like their mothers, lie in the pear orchard by mid morning.

Politically it's enough to drive a person nuts as so many issues all being thrust at us at the same time. Some are things we thought we had resolved like North Dakota trying to take away a woman's right to choose. One red state after another has done this and then they try to tell us women should support the Republican party. How can we? I mean all women have a right to choose now. Nobody forces an abortion and frankly if a woman wants to keep a baby that she can't really afford or who will be born with problems, the party fighting to end abortion is also fighting to end any programs to help her raise that child. Make sense-- not!

 
Then there is gay marriage which seems a given to anybody who isn't using Old Testament religion as the basis for their thinking. Did Christ condemn homosexuality? Not a chance, but the Apostle Paul did, who may have been a gay himself and whatever the truth of that, used the Old Testament as the basis for his condemnation. The Constitution is supposed to not be about religion and yet only religion would say gays should not have a right to marriage with all the benefits that includes culturally and materially. 

I have said for a long time that the right to gay marriage is more important for the youth than older gays. It lets them know there is a way for them to lead a life as normal as anyone else's. If gay marriage was regarded as equal to any other, then they'd have no reason to marry a heterosexual to try and fit in. They see their life as normal for them and okay for everybody. That's  commonsense though and it's not part of this debate.

The other issue that has attracted my interest is the raising of the minimum wage. If it had kept up with inflation, it'd not be an issue at all right now. That's why when they say vouchers are good enough for Medicare and the CPI is good for SS raises, don't believe them. It's all about making these programs, these entitlements have no meaning or value-- as they managed to do federally with the minimum wage.

Anyway I actually avoid the news a lot right now, but those issues are the ones I've cared about probably the most when I do click in. Otherwise my life is back in 1865 and dealing with the political issues that were a factor then, the Indian war that Oregon was experiencing, the arguments over how to deal with a lot of the same issues we argue over today. 

One problem with writing a new work, having a WIP, is that I tend to disappear into it. I come up for air once in awhile and wonder where the world went. It's not easy to avoid that happening. In the middle of the night I'll wake and all I can think about is did that plot element work? Oh wait, it didn't and I have to remember in the morning to redo it because 'that' character would never do that. The only way I can get back to sleep is start counting breaths to force my mind from the story and to nothingness-- which is where sleep lies.

Then I had a dream that my computer caught a virus and I feared my WIP had been be lost. I am being quite careful in avoiding going to offbeat sites for research as that very much could happen. I have never seen a screen do what mine did in that dream, odd distorted shapes and no ability to control anything.

Even without the dream, I frequently save my work as I go because i have had something go wrong in the past, what we used to call a blue screen of death, and I'd lose everything I hadn't just saved. I never felt I got it as fresh the next time as I imagined I had the first.

Photos all here at the farm. One recent visitor has been the wild Chinese pheasant, likely planted here some years back as they are not native to this region other than brought in for hunting. The above male comes around every so often to check out the grain supply for the sheep. Even before I see him, I hear him as he has quite a hoarse call. I haven't seen the turkeys yet, but our yearly wood duck residents have shown up for the smorgasbord of whatever the sheep don't eat. The small birds have their own feeder inside the area fenced off from the sheep-- generally.

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Social media-- good or bad?

Almost two years ago, when I began to think about bringing out all my stories onto eReaders, editing reminded me of something about our culture. Communication had changed so totally that it required major revamps if I wanted the stories to be set in today. 

Pay phones-- virtually a thing of the past. Cell phones-- total necessity. Computers-- who can live without them. VCR is now DVD and in some of my books, even that hadn't been in homes. This all illustrates one advantage of writing historical novels-- possible technologies of the time don't change at least not if you researched it well to start.

April 2008 Seal Rock

What has triggered this thinking is what happened in Steubenville, Ohio. If you followed it, you know the details, if not, I won't go into them as they are pretty unpleasant. The part that relates to what I'm thinking is how social media played a role as it has in so many happenings especially with youth but also oldsters.

Kids today simply don't know the same world I, or even my kids, did growing up. Today, youth are connected and online, some from early childhood. Their every move is recorded and passed onto friends and family in a way that past parents could only dream of doing. As soon as they are old enough, they have cell phones and text their friends to the point they are never disconnected from their social network. How will this impact the emotional maturing of these kids?

Parents face defeat attempting to monitor Facebook and social networking sites 

The rape in Steubenville was compounded by tweets and instagram photos of the crime while those not connected directly to it watched and did nothing. Would the young men have even done what they did if they had not been drunk themselves and then egged on? We know the gang mentality of the young where murders have been committed, lots of kids knew, and protected the crime through some kind of group loyalty or psychoses. This rape though was discovered and its damage compounded by social media that enabled voyeurism and guilt by association (some of whom may find there is a criminal penalty to be paid).

 May 2009 Seal Rock

I worry about the impact on kids who are never disconnected from electronic media, but adults aren't immune to the influence. Some grew up in a world where it was all they knew. Some, like my generation, came to it after years of other methods. For all the good social media can do, there is a downside.

Lately I've seen several sites writing about hurt feelings from words that were only possible because of blogs, Facebook, or other social sites.  People forget that everything they say here, it all is out there and can be found by others. Some give intimate information on their lives that maybe they won't later want to have available to the world-- but it will be. 

Social media has a particular tendency to encourage more sharing of things that at one time would have been unthinkable to tell strangers-- and yet that's exactly what is happening. Old folks are as prone to this as kids.

We can now publish books, put pictures of ourselves online with no censorship at all in some places. Facebook does censor but still people in their underwear to strangers? Seriously? In some ways we can know more about strangers than we do our neighbors but do we really? How much of what we read is invented? 

December 2011 Seal Rock

We can be dragged into voyeurism ourselves if we don't have a strong sense of values that says-- I won't read or look at that. Whoa, those words went too far for me! That photo, is it what I think it is, and instead of staying and salivating, shutting down the site. 

When I began on the internet, I was in a group site where you could have private chats but also share in designated rooms. I was chatting with a guy who was flirting or trying to with me, but he also was watching something he told me I should go see. In one of the 'rooms' a couple had put up a link to their webcam where they were making love. The guy thought it was great. I thought it was wrong for them and anybody who viewed it. I didn't want to be part of encouraging this couple to degrade themselves from the egging on of others. He saw nothing wrong with it. The twenty year age difference between us might have explained part of that different way we saw it.

People build friendships through the Internet, and I am the first to say it can be done. I have met people this way who became real time friends. I also know those who were defrauded by people who created identities aimed for that purpose. Some do it out of loneliness but others are grifters who make money off the loneliness of others.

My main thought here is how easily people say mean things, things they'd never say to someone in person because the internet makes meanness easy. It makes possible to encourage someone who is degrading themselves or others, an act that person would never do in person. 

To many people the internet is an alternate reality, a different level of relationship which can become a trap. It is a fact in our world where we do our business online, learn the news, talk to friends, share our experiences. That genii is out of the bottle, but it does take a sense of ethics to use it wisely for ourselves, not become part of things that are wrong because they don't seem real-- not make it the center of our lives.

Especially for the younger generation, it is a constant battle to stay connected enough without it becoming crippling to their physical reality-- or as happened in Steubenville, get them into serious trouble.

March 2013 Seal Rock

And for oldsters, I think it's just good to keep it in perspective. Use it, don't let it use us. Understand that what we write, either in a blog or comments, goes beyond the immediate and can be found for years to come. Nothing out there is really private to those who know how to hack.

Photos are the ones I mentioned of four long time friends at a vacation spot we have enjoyed over the last five years. Sometime I will take the time to find the photos of us through the years-- we go way back-- although not quite to childhood. I came across a few of them when looking for petroglyph photos. Hard to believe it's even us ;). Today we use social media as this couple are the only ones with whom I chat  now using Skype (with MSN messenger going down). We could use the phone, do get together now and then, but we enjoy the convenience of typing, connecting and onward to our days. The internet isn't a bad thing. Social media isn't harmful unless we lose control of it.

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The genesis of creativity

A feeling is coming over me that-- miracle of miracles that I can detect this-- I am about to offend believers in fundamentalist Christianity. So I warn them right now-- come back next Saturday, you will be happier.

This week we had a delightful break at the Coast. Three nights with friends at a rental house that the four of us have had four times since 2008 (We have taken a photo like the one below each time and I will post them all sometime). Along with such a wonderful time of sitting and watching the ocean (I learned when there that I can watch the waves and birds for hours and not find it boring or too much), we had a lot of great conversations and good food.  

One of the conversation is about to morph into this blog as I woke up last night thinking about miracles, magic, magick, mystery, muses, or... the mundane.

At the house, i was sitting on the sofa watching the ocean waves and birds while Diane was painting and I brought up something I'd been reading. Mark Burnett, the producer of The Survivor (to me an icky show about profiting from manipulation), who has now put out a mini-series on the History Channel, The Bible, claimed miracles happened on the set proving God had his hand in the production and wanted it made. 

That he would say such a thing irked me for two reasons. One I've heard that talk throughout my life. When a shooter kills a bunch of people, often one of those who didn't get shot credits it to a miracle. When a hiker is lost and crews find them-- miracle. Miracles are thought to prove God's hand is on that person's life which is generally thought to mean they were spared because they were still needed here (what does that say about those who weren't spared?). This is the talk of a personal god, the kind who gets involved in productions of TV series because everybody knows He can't adequately publicize himself. 

This ignores what happened to those who did get shot, the hiker who didn't get found, the person the bear did kill. It ignores the one who needed a new car but it didn't suddenly appear (God takes great interest in providing material goods to his beloved). Well not totally ignores as then the spiel is-- it was for their own good that it (loss/disease/disappointment/etc.) happened. Always these things are miracles whichever way it goes.

In a week where a lot of talk was over a new Pope, religion is a topic of conversation anyway (good, bad, or no change for the Church?). I might forgive a reality TV show producer for claiming God blessed his new project by miraculous signs that he was looking for, but what really irked me is this supposedly creative person (I'll reserve judgment on that one but certainly successful), wouldn't understand how creativity works and his supposed miraculous events relate more to that then to some divine intervention.

Of course, believers would say I am about to be blasphemous (which is why I warned them away and take no responsibility for them being offended). I would be blasphemous if I believed God/god/deity had anything to do with his claimed miracles or that now the series is getting very high ratings which is shocking everybody-- supposedly -- or at least those who don't know how many claim to be Christians in our country. (on that link, check out the clip at the bottom for the trailer and the level of acting in the show-- more special effects than great acting was my take if that is the 'best' it has anyway).

My conversation with Diane, while i was sitting on the sofa watching the ocean to possibly photography the perfect ocean wave/pelicans/eagle and she was standing at her easel tweaking her painting of that ocean, was more my thinking on how creativity works than that a shyster might once again be scamming a bunch of people with his piety (seen it before, haven't we). 

When we are into a creative work, when we have put together the pieces that can make it happen, then is when the muse (which is a word I like but don't mean by it a being necessarily but the energy wave that comes with creative work) can bring into play more elements. Things happen that we didn't expect. 

Creativity doesn't happen when someone is not doing the work. It happens in the midst of it and the lucky accidents keep adding to what is possible. It's serendipity and those who do creative work learn to expect it.

When I carved, in stone I always thought the sculpture was inside and just needed me to carve away what was getting in its way. Then later working with clay, the same thing. A blob of clay that I would begin kneading to take out the air bubbles would begin to reveal what it was intended to be. If I had waited to work that clay until I had a plan, I'd likely have never sculpted.

Now it's true of my writing. I know the gist of where I am going but once I have set characters into that setting, as I am into the middle of it, lots of cool things come along that I enjoy very much. As the writer, I don't take credit for all this happening. I also don't know from where it really comes; however, I see as enriching for me as the creator and for what will come from my work. 

As an example with the story I am currently writing. I knew because of when/where the events were taking place that grizzly bears were potential in the area even though later they disappeared from Oregon (they're returning now into the northeastern corner or so I have been told by locals). Way ahead of where I was writing, I began thinking how the bear would impact the story. By the time I got to where it was going to happen, the events were just there. Nothing I originally imagined but far better. 

If someone wants to write, paint, sculpt, etc., and they think they are not creative, my advice is just start. It is in the doing that the chances come along that enrich the work, that can seem like a miracle but in reality is just a product of doing and being aware.

To me creative work always involves lucky accidents, recognizing a meaning beyond the obvious, and running with it. The fact that someone wants to make that into a miracle to bless their life or work over someone else's offends me. 

In the link above, there is a trailer to the movie Burnett created. It's worth taking a peek at what he considers the best of the shows. Farm Boss laughed when he saw it but his laughter also is likely blasphemy to the true believers-- where's a good lightning bolt when you need one or was god also laughing? 

Someone who is supposed to be doing God's work and has the hand of God on that work, wouldn't you expect the work to be superior and not enhanced by gimmicks and emotional tricks? Maybe not from the producer of The Survivor... 

Being in the now

mating damsel flies

dragonfly with sun bubble

You are not "in the now"--

You are the now.

That is your essential identity-- the only thing that never changes.

Life is always now. Now is consciousness.

And consciousness is who you are. That's the equation.

Eckhart Tolle

Probably living in the now is one of the more complex of human concepts even as it seems it should be obvious. We so often live in the past, in the future and the now is something to get through.

The problem is when we don't live in the 'now', we miss our only opportunity to experience anything. Whether we are enjoying something that happened or anticipating something we want-- or don't want, it's easy to lose track of what we actually have.

 dragonfly possibly recently emerged from the stream where they live most of their lives with a few glorious months flitting around with that beautiful color and wings

As I go through the photos looking for images I can use either for trailers, covers, Pinterest, or the blogs, I am easily carried back to moments when each photo was taken. Sometimes that's enjoyable. Sometimes it's depressing. I don't suppose it hurts once in awhile to do that as part of our 'now' but it can get tricky if we put too much of our value into what we accomplished or did not.

As a painter, sculptor, photographer, and writer, I've learned that all I really care about is what I am working on right at the moment. All the past photos are nice. Glad someone liked that last painting, but it's the one now that I struggle with and see as the thing of most value. I suppose that is because the creating of it is the now and it's not the product at all-- even though there is a product involved.

Last year we got some of the best photos we have ever had of a praying mantis in our garden. Most likely it happened because of disturbing the wood storage area with new fencing (keeping in the cats). Whatever the reason, she (big bottom says it's a female and possibly ready to lay eggs) posed in a fantastic way. Many insects run from us but praying mantises do not in my experience anyway. They are not only the now but in their own power.

I literally cannot tell you how many years I wanted praying mantis photos as once one landed in my hair when we were at a renaissance faire. I was delighted, able to put it in a safe spot. Since then I have looked for them but this time, without wanting it, there it was. I think such small moments are the main benefit of living in the now.

Rainbow treasure trove

The rainbow treasures will soon belong to you.

Anybody pay any attention to those fortunes you get inside Oriental cookies? Have you ever had one that actually came true? I am not sure when I got that one but it dropped out of my purse last week, and I put it on my desk as inspiration. So far no rainbow treasures that I can think of. I haven't even seen a rainbow recently.

Of course, I have been buried in writing. When I edited the Oregon Trail story, it was really an epic effort as I still believe in that story even though it first began when I was in my teens. My cousin and I would go for walks during family gatherings and we'd tell stories. It was one. Here I am now almost 70 and it's still a story I believe in even though I had to tweak a few things this go round.

Pioneers heading west were hoping for rainbow's end. They had a dream of a new life and were willing to take great risks to get it. I think we all have such dreams even if we don't go traveling around trying to find a rainbow's treasures. 

I've actually driven through a rainbow, with the light all around me-- no treasure if you count treasure as gold. On the other hand if treasure is a great memory, then I still have that one, of being surrounded by colored light and then driving out the other side. I keep wondering, when we are driving and see one if we went the right way, might we again drive through it? So far not. When it happened, we were on a bridge over a river and that might have been what allowed it. 

I've been close to their end several times and never yet seen a pot of gold. I suppose the myth came because if humans are searching for pots of gold, they likely always keep moving ahead-- never really attainable.

We have had a very gray winter in my part of the Pacific Northwest. It's the kind of winter that sends those who came from warmer states back home. It's not that we get the blizzards or snow that some areas experience, but we just have one gray foggy or rainy day after another. It feels like a rain forest only it's not. It is also not the only kind of winters my area can get.

Other than living one year in Arizona, I have lived all my life here in the Pacific Northwest, on the ocean side of the Cascade Mountains. I know it about as well as any region even though there are other climate types that I've come to love also. We do get rainbows, but it takes sunshine to create them and it's been in short supply this winter.

So I thought I'd pull up a few of my old rainbow photos through the years from here and other places, some in the sky, some in waterfalls, one in a geyser. I've seen many full rainbows but haven't successfully photographed them with the whole entirety of the bow and sometimes a double or triple. Even when I have seen the whole thing often I've only been able to capture part of it.

Finally because I was doing this blog and because I like to look through CanStock for images that I didn't take myself or couldn't take for assorted reasons, here is a rainbow on what looks like an alkali desert, maybe eastern California in Death Valley but hard to say.

Oh and for those interested in the lambing. 41 so far, most twins or triplets. I will tell you that having a lot of lambs and new mothers around is not restful whatever the imagery suggests. They are always getting lost or separated and then complaining to each other. Farm Boss has had to pull three so far which is three more than last year but they all were successful as in mother and big lamb are doing fine. 

We also took one into our kitchen, after being found as a reject, nearly dead in the barns until Farm boss brought him in to tube (using a thin tube that lets the lamb replacer go into his stomach when a lamb cannot suck) and bring back to life. So far it looks, after a lot of back rubs, cooing to it, and reiki, as though it will make it-- but now we have to find someone with children interested in raising up a lamb. 

When our daughter was young, she sometimes took weak ones into bed with her to warm them up. She said the only problem is once she brought them back to life, the mothers wanted them back. I doubt this one will as she had triplets and probably couldn't manage more than two.

not everyone is pleased

this and that

Frankly my ideas for writing here are pretty low. I am reading the newspapers, following the talk over the sequestration, immigration, guns, etc. etc. But to be honest, currently my personal life is all about my writing. I thought about it the other day how for the last month or two, I don't seem to exist and it's all about my characters, what they need, and how their lives are going.

Finishing the rough draft of one of my historical manuscripts and taking a break from fiction writing before I start on the other partially finished one, I have thought maybe I ought to be looking at my own life. Am I living as I want to be? What's going well or not for me? How did I let the area around my desk turn into something that looks like a pack rat's den? But I'm not-- I'm still tweaking the one I just finished and more interested in how Priscilla (its heroine) is managing than with how I am. 

The only news story to really pique my interest is of Oscar Pistorius shooting his girlfriend. This is a human interest story which often attracts my interest; but in this case, my following it has been because so far no possible scenario regarding what happened makes any sense. I like to understand why people do what they do; however, sometimes in life there are things that literally have no such logical scenario. Murder frequently fits into that category.

Blasting through a bathroom door to kill a burglar doesn't  make sense (logically the culprit is locked in there and you call the police, right?). Killing a girlfriend of three months doesn't, no matter how passionate you are (mad at your girlfriend-- logically, you dump her). Either way what happened is illogical. 

The judge, in granting bail, called Pistorius' written testimony as to what happened implausible and that pretty well describes how I see either scenario; so I read when I see something new because I keep thinking eventually it'll make sense. So far not. All that is obvious is this is a horrible tragedy and involves a killing by a man full of fear or rage who should NOT, for his sake and others, have had a gun at all. 

Having served on a jury not that long ago, I had been thinking I'd hate to be on the one that decides this case. Then I learned South Africa doesn't have juries. Judges decide innocence or guilt. I don't know if that's better or not. The articles on the high crime rate, fear there of home invasions, level of gun ownership, and then the horror of their main prison system has all been an eye opener as it wasn't how I saw South Africa. Nothing like a notorious crime to reveal culture. It happens to us in our own country all the time!
 
Otherwise on the farm-- lots more lambs, many twins, one set of triplets, one single that had to be pulled, one born dead. The first photo below is of twins, a few hours old and one of my favorite ewes. The others are of twins born the day before.

Locally, most of our weather has been gray and moderate this winter with no really hard freezes yet, only a smattering of December snow, lots and lots of fog. On one of our rare sunny days, Farm Boss and I drove out to Finley National Wildlife Refuge with the Nikon CoolPix P510 that we recently acquired, using frequent flier points, to see how our three cameras with telephotos compared. 

The new one held up nicely against its bigger brothers. It is a nice little camera, less weight to carry on hikes and a pretty good telephoto, 16.1 mp, 42x zoom. All the photos in this blog were taken with it-- some at a considerable distance. I have yet to totally understand all its settings, but it looks like it has a lot of options that will be useful when finally figured out.

So far I still wish I had a really big telephoto like I said I wanted but can't justify the $10,000 it would cost. And yes, for shooting photos of the wolves in Yellowstone, that's what it would cost to get one that could do it at the distance we generally see them. It's obviously much cheaper to buy the photos someone else took!

 In this last photo at Finley, those are hundreds of geese in the distance. They might be readying themselves to head north. It is getting close to the season and you could feel the excitement in the air.

the dichotomy of life

Dichotomy: division into two mutually exclusive, opposed or contradictory groups; something with seemingly contradictory qualities. 

As a writer, it might not surprise you that I totally am into the juxtaposition of opposing life elements, one next to another, elements might seem totally unrelated and yet are in a profound way the true meaning of what life is about because life is filled with such. 

Tuesday we had an example of such a happening. I was reading online, looking to see if they had yet caught the terrorist on the loose in the Los Angeles area. I call him a terrorist because he had put out a manifesto saying he would kill police and their family members for wrongs he felt the police force had done to him. There was a list. He clearly only wanted to kill police officers as anyone else with whom he came in contact was freed or let go. 

Some even had turned him into a hero, putting likes on a Facebook page for him and on other [social media sites] expressing sympathy for him and a feeling that the police weren't doing right or hadn't done right. They apparently dismiss the murder of a young couple whose only connection to him was her father had represented him in a hearing that cost him his job. Or the police officer gunned down while stopped at a traffic signal with no warning he was a target.

The manhunt took awhile. By the time Tuesday came along, I was glad to hear they him cornered, and I turned on the TV to see what was happening. I watched as the news media made the usual fools out of themselves while trying to reveal the latest scoop when they had no idea what it was. 

Then came the cabin fire which reminded me of other times I've turned on the TV to watch the Koresh compound being attacked and suddenly burning and 9/11 in NYC. The rumors continued being spread by the media while real life was happening-- messy as real life tends to be. For those who felt the LA police were to blame and plotted to kill the shooter before he could tell his story, the last stand and the officer killed in the final confrontation all were part of San Bernadino police.

This all was going down while on the other side of our nation, another man was readying himself to give a speech about the State of our Union. He would be doing this before most of the leaders of our nation with only a few held back just in case something catastrophic took out that building before the speech was over.

This man laid out what he believed we needed to do as a people to make our country a better place to live. He spoke of many progressive values but always with the goal of doing things with less cost and greater long term gain. He spoke of a nation where everyone had a chance and encouraged preschools throughout the nation, as Georgia and Oklahoma have provided, so that all children get the advantage of a jump start to their education.

While this was going on, in my own world:

lambs were being born,  We now have several sets of twins and one of triplets while one of the young ewes had a still birth. There are also two new calves.

I did the first cursory edit of my just completed historical romance which is a story of love, community, family, Arizona, danger, and consequences of our actions-- those which can take us to a better life or further into darkness. 

Farm Boss had been involved with technology helping another start up company that would make plantings of trees and plants more successful with less needed water and lower failure rates in areas where they cannot be watered during the summers.

And while most of us were either enjoying a lovely Valentine's Day, feeling a bit down about our lives, or ignoring it totally, there was this story, which if you are interested in human motivations, you probably already were following: [Prosecutors charge premeditated in Steenkamp murder case]. The story involves two highly successful people, the overcoming of a handicap in the ultimate way, a South African hero, a beautiful model, love, violence, and a holiday about love. 

From what I have read of the run up to it, the couple had only been a couple for a few months. It was reported that the murdered woman Twittered about her excitement regarding a surprise and Valentine's Day. She also was someone who spoke out against abuse of women. 

What next happened was the ultimate dichotomy of both sides of love regardless of what you believe led to him shooting her [four times through the bathroom door]. Even a court decision may not reveal the whole truth of that night because we are left with the earlier police call, what the neighbors heard, forensics evidence, and his version of the event-- she's not here to tell her side.

One thing you learn when you write is life can be exactly like that. Up against the direst circumstance can be the most beautiful happenings and the most mundane.
Life is too often totally unexpected and making no sense-- which is why I like to write stories using human nature, the emotion of love, and put together endings that do work out and make sense. I create characters and give them the happy ending that so often life denies people. I do it for myself as the writer and for potential readers.

Caretaker or destroyer

Although I have long thought this, It's been a long time since I wrote about it.  I also have a way of categorizing people but it's not by ethnicity, gender, sex, IQ, education, color, or even politics (although that's becoming harder to say). I do it by whether they are caretakers or destroyers. 

I went looking for the original piece I had written about it for the blog and was surprised to find it back in 2006. Wow, I've been doing this blog a long while.

Caretaker or Destroyer

I have refined my thinking on it even though I don't think i wrote about it again. For one thing nobody has to stay one thing. They also don't have to be all of one thing. Maybe in one part of their life they are a caretaker type and in another it will be destroyer. It can get confusing when that person behaves a destroyer in their family but a pious caretaker in public. 


Also the word caretaker is often misused as if it's someone who nursemaids others. That is not how I see the word. To me a caretaker is the one who does the work that leads to it being sustained and healthy, growing. It would mean the same thing where it came to people or the earth. Caretakers don't just give the mushy words and then take whatever suits them. Caretakers understand that there is more than today and they not only live that way but they try to help others also live that way.

Where it comes to recognizing where someone else fits (or even yourself) you cannot go by what is said but more by actions. The politician who claims he's a family man but is on his fourth marriage, most likely he's not.

Assessing where someone is shows up easiest if they raise livestock. Do those people have fields that look healthy? Grass has to be nurtured along with the cattle and sheep. Do their fences make for them being responsible neighbors? If their animals don't look healthy, if they are skinny and malnourished, they can say all the pious words in church or the political arena but they aren't caretakers. The evidence gives them away.

In the world most Americans live in today, they don't see those kind of obvious clues to what that person is. Their children might be well-dressed but at home they are emotionally brow-beaten, never good enough. It's harder for us to figure it out because often destroyers look like fine folks who speak with noble sounding words. Their true character shows up in their business investments, whether they pay their bills on time, how they treat the lowliest of creatures (and that includes humans) around them, and who they support for leaders.

We could argue up one side and down the other about what political party is caretaker and which is destroyer. We could all point to those areas where one party or the other has shown destroyer tendencies but it's harder to evaluate because life today is complex and consequences not always showing up right away. 

A good example is the use of drones that is now being heavily debated as it should be. For a long time Democrats have expressed concern over the use of drones; while generally Republicans have supported it other than those who want to see Obama as a destroyer and then they will see them as bad right up until they get another like McCain or Romney in office.

It's easy to see the concern of drones. Some see them as the ability to wage war without consequences to our own lives. If we know our men and women are at risk, might we use war less cavalierly?  Well we haven't. War has been treated as a commodity especially when we reached a point where there weren't jobs for young people in this country and we had an all volunteer army just waiting for the young to enlist and be sent overseas to whatever benefited our interests... or in destroyer lingo-- kept us safe. I think we have treated war not much different than use of drones.

So is using a drone a destroyer who recklessly disregards life, or a caretaker who sees it as a pinpoint way to take out someone threatening to our nation with less loss of any other lives? Deciding that is the complexity of modern life in America.

Whether it's appropriate to use the word war today might help. If we are in war, then the rules are different but we have used that word pretty carelessly. War on poverty, war on drugs and now war on terror. None of these wars are as convenient as war on a country used to be. If you take the word war out of the equation, then it's easier to say drones are not okay. If it's in the equation, then I think it gets difficult to assess.

Having seen drones flying when I was on the road one time to Arizona, they really are kind of scary. Like big hornets that can be nearly invisible in the sun until suddenly there they are. We were only watching them be 'exercised' but if we lived where they were carrying missiles, seeing them would be terrifying for bad or good guys-- and those standing too close.

I think asking if we ourselves are caretakers or destroyers is probably where the designation helps the most. Do we look to the long range for our choices? Do we help others but in ways that will help them be sustaining, not dependent on us? Do we nurture our own lives with activities of value and that doesn't mean always of a weighty, sober nature but also fun, exercise, building that inner serotonin that makes us more able to not only nurture life in real ways but have the wisdom to see what really will help.

The problem I think we face in our lives is that what can appear to be caretaking can actually be damaging and what can appear to be destroying might actually be nurturing. It's not simple but it is the way life can be lived and when we see we goofed, went a wrong way, we turn it around. That's the lovely part of being human-- we don't just operate by instincts and we can evaluate and re-evaluate.

I am not someone who spends a lot of time staring at my navel contemplating life (as the joke goes) but I have done it, worked out my own creed, my value set even when it might not suit someone else, and I do try to always live by it. Only now and then do I re-evaluate whether it's still working. Someone who can never re-evaluate is likely neither caretaker nor destroyer-- they are just part of the scenery ;)

The first salamanders date back 164 million years give or take a few million. We see this variety on our gravel road and usually will encourage them to leave the road which means pick them up with a stick or leaves and give them a toss because their defense mechanism is to pretend they are dead-- the reason for care in handling them is their other defense mechanism is a toxic fluid which they can exude.  Playing dead might work well with predators but autos-- not so much.  We usually take them off just because we hate to later see their squished bodies, but when I read they have declining populations, I don't feel it's so pointless to do. They are predators, and he's the first we have seen this year. Maybe spring is approaching faster than it seems.

Spam is a loser

 Oregon High Desert Museum January 2013

I don't know how other people work this out, but spam directed at this blog really irks me. Blogger has done an excellent job on catching it before it reaches the blog itself; so whether I use word verification or moderation, they get almost all the spam-- BUT it all goes to my email to notify me of a comment. The only way I could stop that would be by no longer receiving notifications of comments. I LIKE notifications especially if I've written on a controversial topic where I will want to respond and keep a conversation going.

So I put up word verification which cut way back on the number of email notifications but I HATE word verification when I have to use it. It's hard to figure out the letters and even when I am sure I got it right, I often have to do it twice. So annoying. To put it onto my blog means I am subjecting the few who will comment (and most readers do not) to working through those murky letters which likely means even less do comment.

What gets me about it is-- why do spammers do it? Do they actually sell any products that way? Are they paid by the numbers they put out? I am not sure what they think it will accomplish, but I've never even read those links let alone taken the chance of clicking on one and getting some kind of virus or a phony product that likely if I offered to buy I'd find my money disappearing along with the product.

They are clever, the spammers as they often flatter the heck out of a writer as they have gotten quite good at making it sound like they read the blog. But why not put their energy into creating their own sales blogs or something? I mean what are the odds that my blog will sell what they are spamming? For the few times blogger misses one (and it's few), I delete them when I see them. 

Once, and only once, I made a catastrophic error when I got to my spam folder where they request we regularly check to be sure all are spam (and for some reason blogger does put one of my readers in there which always amazes me as she might be the only one i know who uses her actual full name to comment). I clicked on the button to check all boxes then clicked on the button to delete the spam and realized too late I'd hit the button that said-- not spam. That meant I had to figure out where those spammers had posted and get there to delete all of them by hand. I am VERY careful to not repeat that mistake.

So for now I am keeping the word verification off but if it reappears, know the reason why-- my email load just can't handle it.





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Imbolc

Painting by Diane Widler Wenzel whose blog is Umbrella Painting Journal

Imbolc, Ewe's Milk, February 2 is the traditional, Celtic end of winter with the coming of spring. I know it's not what the calendar or the sun phases say, but it's what is revealed by nature and with the new lambs. Almost always we have our first lamb by this time and the rest follow shortly after. Because we don't control breeding of our sheep, the rams are with the flock year round, this isn't quite as tidy a business as it would be in a more corporate type ranch. We operate with the seasons and the sheep determine those.

We know it's still winter by outside cold temperatures and in my valley the darkness, fog, long nights, but those nights are little by little shortening. And the plants outside know this. I can see some of the first growths coming up from the soil, buds swelling on the end of trees and shrubs. 

digital painting-- sun breaking through darkness

We are still in the dark but with the bursting forth so near, it's a good time for meditating, for thinking of possibilities, of our own growth. As the light grows, we see more shadows. It is a time where the ancients would say we may open our third eye to see the truths that the world around us does not reveal. 

My dreams have been rich, not so much dreams of what will come but vivid dreams with color and events. I am writing a new book and it's been coming together in very exciting ways. I know for those who dislike romances, that won't seem a big deal. It's a big deal to me as these characters take on life and action. They grow as outside I see the buds expanding ready to burst forth.

While I am doing a lot of internal work (analysis of a recent dream is in my Rain Trueax blog), writing many hours each day, time with family in Central Oregon, planning for activities later this spring and summer (beach trip with friends and Yellowstone in July), I am also reading the papers, listening to some news and thinking about our country and the directions it is expanding.

As a woman who has always lived by the laws, I have had a hard time with what has happened here regarding immigration. When we haphazardly punished some for immigration violations while others have been rewarded, immigration has been an issue that has troubled me (and I've written on it before with the general conclusion we have laws and they should be obeyed). Basically I had felt that it can't be right for Americans to profit from cheap labor because they looked the other way on immigration for their own profit.

For years I didn't like the idea of amnesty and thought in terms of better border security (it's not all about Mexico), enforcement of the laws, work regulations that kept illegal residents from benefiting from coming without permission.

But at the same time, I recognized that at one time everybody came without permission. When my grandmother's grandparents came from Germany and bought a farm in South Dakota, I doubt they had permission. On the other side, my great grandfather came from Scotland. Who did he have to ask in the 1800s? Even the relatives that came earlier, some to what was New Amsterdam in the 1400s, there were no green cards or even Visas. They just came if they could afford the boat fare. If not they may have sold themselves into servitude for a number of years to gain passage. 

So here we are today with rules and regulations that are regularly broken. In January President Obama basically announced he goes along with the Senate Eight on a proposal to strengthen borders, work regulations, loosen up on the number of green cards and work visas, a path to citizenship, but one that makes those 11 million here illegally get to the back of the line and pay back taxes.

First of all why would they do that? How many years would they then have to wait to work here legally? Let's assume they have jobs now, do they give them up to the ones who waited to do it legally? Are we giving them a pass on that until they do finally get their papers-- and if so, then some of the new law is like the one under Reagan.

Long Wait for Green Cards

My questions are why will the Senate and Obama proposals work better than what happened under Reagan? Will they just open a door to more illegal entry? Is it actually fair to undocumented workers currently here since they weren't the only ones contributing to what happened. Someone hired them whether for steady jobs or day labor. They were rewarded by Americans wanting their gardens cheaper or construction or food production enabling those who didn't look too closely to get lower prices.

Maybe it's that I am getting old, but I wonder now if we have any ability to actually control borders in a country like ours where entry comes so many ways. Is the world so changed that all nations with borders need to rethink this as one world and one people with all the various ethnicities, religions, genders, and cultures? I get it that you must protect resources except from those other countries, how many of them did someone exploit their resources already?

The talk is allowing in more people with training and skills. Less who do gardening. Is that going to be fair to Americans who did train and develop skills but find their wages depressed by the competition? Who benefits from that?

So I think the immigration problem didn't happen solely due to those who came here without papers. This country contributed to it. Can it be fixed now by new regulations, expanded numbers of green cards, more enforcement at the work place, allowing companies to expedite the green card for what has until now been an illegal employee? I have my doubts but what is going on right now is unfair. 

The world is changing just as Imbolc signifies our way back to growth and more light, maybe it's the right time to make a change with immigration that will actually work if that's possible. I know one thing-- as I get older, I feel less need to control everything-- maybe it's an awareness I can't anyway.

There are many [traditions regarding Imbolc] but the main thing is light is coming-- which is reason to celebrate.

 .one of my oil paintings-- Bird Woman