Little profundities

Every once in a while, my clients say something profound.   Actually, they say profound things on a regular basis, but I don’t always remember them when the massage is over and they have left the premises.

The other day, however, one of my clients said something that really stuck in my mind.  He is 87 years old, and a farmer.  His daughter turned him on to my services, and the work I have done has made a huge difference in his pain level and mobility.   It is really fun to see someone experience massage for the first time.

Now, I am the first to admit that perfection eludes me, even though I set a high standard for myself.  Every once in a while, I really screw up the appointment book.  I cannot blame these events on electronics, because my appointment book is a hard copy upon which I write with one of those nearly obsolete things that deliver ink to paper.

I occasionally toy with the idea that perhaps I should move into the 21st century and embrace the electronic appointment software that is out there.  I am reluctant to do this, largely because I feel like electronic doohickeys already dominate too much of our lives.  Also, I have witnessed people standing at my counter, entering their next appointment into their phone along with alarms and reminders, and still have them neglect to come.  They are frequently confused because their phone did not remind them of their upcoming appointment.   And they show me the empty date…  This is exactly what I fear would happen to me if I were so unwise as to commit my work schedule to a data base.

Besides which, I read articles over and over that tell me that in order to be successful these days I MUST have on-line appointment making available, because the millenials don’t want to deal with actually talking to real live people.   I call bullshit.  I have plenty of millenials who are my clients who have no problem making their appointments with me without using an on-line app.  Personally, I want to have more control over my schedule than a computer run appointment book would give me.   Call me old fashioned. Call me a luddite.

That all being said, I am perfectly capable of messing up the book all by myself, with no help from computers!  And I did that early this week.   I had two people scheduled at the same time for reasons that I will not go into here, but involved making an appointment for someone when I was not in the presence of my book.   Big no no.

So, when my older man showed up while I was working on the other client, Jim had the job of telling him that I was double booked.   He came for an appointment later in the week, and when he arrived I apologized profusely.  He said, “You’re fine.  Things happen, it is just fine.   I always like to say, ‘If you don’t do nothing you won’t make any mistakes.” Then he added, “I am still mad at myself for picking up your phone and walking off with it the other day just because it looked like my phone.”

If you don’t do anything, you will never make any mistakes.   The fear of making a mistake can lead us to paralysis.   Good to remember.   The corollary is a common saying in art journal circles:  There are no mistakes, only happy accidents.

Go ahead, be brave!  Act!  Do not fear your mis-steps.  They could lead you to wisdom, and possibly better art.

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Going solar, conclusion

Getting our solar array constructed and connected was a lot like seeing an avalanche set in motion.   At first, just a few balls of snow break off a cornice and start falling down the mountainside.   As they gain momentum and pick up a little more snow, the slide becomes larger and more noticeable.   Suddenly, a huge mass of snow breaks loose, and running faster and faster down the slope it finally crashes to a stop in the valley below. While the installation of our panels was nothing like the destructive power of an avalanche, the way the whole thing happened was a lot like that.   First there were all the preliminary steps like moving dirt, cleaning up piles of wood and rock to do.   Then we decided that rather than put the inverters into a shop that needed refurbishing and then have to work around them, we would do the refurbishing first.   And then it seemed like the holes would never get dug. But once they were, the whole thing took on a life and momentum of its own and it was a positive dash to the finish. Last Thursday was the “witching hour” when our local utility company sent a crew out to replace our one meter service with the two meters required for grid tie solar.   Our own electrician was here too, to make the actual physical connection of the solar power to the meter. Here is the progression, in photographs. The solar array: The pole: Incidentally, I want to say a huge thank you to all the people who worked on this for us.   Our designer, Stan Kramer was an invaluable source of information and expertise, not to mention a power house of a worker on the physical labor side.   Our electrician, Harold Ewing was a true craftsman, efficient, and fun to talk to.   The crew from Laclede Electric that did the meter installation were also artists in electrical work, efficient, professional and pleasant. The inverters: The million volt lightning arrester (there are three, one per inverter and one at the meter): The reason we have two inverters is because of the generating capacity of the solar array.   It turned out to be less costly to buy two smaller inverters and hook them into the grid in series than to buy one inverter with enough capacity to serve the whole array.  Each inverter has a panel that gives you information about how much power is being generated right at the moment you look, how much was generated each hour during the past hours, how many kilowatt hours you have generated that day, and then it also tells you how many megawatts have been generated since the system was operational. These are the two panels taken yesterday afternoon: So, of course the question always comes up as to how much did it all cost and was it worth it?  The total cost of the whole thing (not counting the improvements to the barn) came in just shy of $18,000.   We will be receiving a 30% tax credit for the system on our federal income tax.   That credit can be spread out over a couple of years because the caveat is you can’t make your tax bill less than zero. Yep.   That’s a lot of money.   But since the system has been running we have generated 125 kiloWatt hours of electricity.   That is in five and half days.  Two of those days were overcast and on one it actually rained.   The system still generated power that day. We are expecting a return on our investment of between 5 and 6 percent annually.    If that doesn’t sound like all that much to you, I invite you to investigate just how much interest you get on a savings account.   Around here they are paying 0.05% on a savings account.   Our stocks and mutual funds did not lose money this year, but they also did not earn anything.   So a guaranteed yearly ROI of 5% looks pretty good to us. Also, let me just point out that we don’t expect the price of electricity to be going down any time soon. (!)  Every time the rates go up, our ROI will get better. Plus, it is putting our money where our mouth is:  cutting back on our carbon footprint in a pretty big way.   That feels really good right now!

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Bonfires

Flaming is a hostile and insulting interaction between Internet users, often involving the use of profanity.

Flaming usually occurs in the social context of an Internet forum, Internet Relay Chat (IRC), Usenet, by e-mail, game servers such as Xbox Live or PlayStation Network, and on video-sharing websites. It is frequently the result of the discussion of heated real-world issues such as politics, religion, and philosophy, or of issues that polarize sub-populations, but can also be provoked by seemingly trivial differences.

Of course, the above definition does not point out that often the “seemingly trivial differences” are never trivial in the eyes of the flamer.

You might wonder why I would mention flaming, and the reason, of course, is that I have been flamed recently.    I think anyone who uses the internet either has been flamed or will be sometime in the future.   The person who flamed me has done so before, and even before the internet was prevalent or we had a vernacular name for this sort of personal and vindictive attack.

My policy previously has been informed by my dear spouse, who has advised me that this person gets furious, vents, fumes, sulks (sometimes for years) and then eventually lets go of the issue and everyone can move on.   The best thing to do, he has told me, is to do nothing and not worry about the situation, which will eventually resolve.

This has indeed been the case in the past times.   The problem is, when one has been viciously attacked, even when the attacker has let it all go, it is hard to forget the previous attacks.  One tends to be on guard, and careful.   The explosion is never pleasant.

I let my guard down recently, and the inevitable attack occurred, via an email that was a huge “FUCK YOU” written with a pen dipped in poison, expressing feelings engendered by misinterpretation. It was painted in terms that were insulting and mean, and contained assumptions, inaccuracies, slurs, innuendos, and character assassination.

I have refused to respond.   And I will not.   Nothing is accomplished by flaming except the wonderful power of being able to hurt people by doing so.

Of course I was hurt, deeply, but mostly I have recovered.   At present I have found deep compassion for this person.  While my compassion is there, I have learned my lesson, finally.   I have no need to ever see this person again, or to exchange any words, nor will I.  This means that I will not have to suffer another flaming episode, as I will know not to read any further correspondence from that quarter.

I read my Tarot cards about the situation, doing a four card layout I like, called “clarification of a situation or emotional condition.”  After you select the cards, they wind up in a square layout.  The card in the North is the actual theme which is really of concern at the moment.   The West card shows what you are receptive and open to.  The South card shows what you are expressing and showing of yourself outwardly.  East is the key; pointing a way in which to overcome the problem actively.

This was the layout I got:

Honestly, I really was not expecting such a group of positive cards.  The theme card, 10 of Cups (Satiety), indicates that I should let things develop by themselves, and that everything comes to me at the right moment.   What I am open to is the 3 of Cups (Love), and indicates that I have something especially valuable to share.  I must be open for the people who can share these feelings.  They are a gift and I don’t need to look for them.  What I am expressing, Prince of Wands, indicates intensity, blossoming love, intuitive creativity, and moving out of the darkness into the light.   The key, the way to overcome the problem, is 9 of Wands (Strength).  I am advised to use the power gained through unifying conscious and unconscious energies, and demonstrate wholeness.

Nice to know that I am surrounded by love and am coming into my true power.  I certainly know I have something valuable to share!  I feel this truth more and more in my professional life.  Last week, two different people called me a miracle worker because of the effect my body work had on their health and pain levels.

A beloved, powerful, miracle worker:   I can live with that.

 

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Irony

There’s a certain amount of irony involved in life, you know.

I was reminded of this the other day when I was out working in the Stroll Garden, specifically the “Scree Slope” portion where I have all the sedums and hen and chicks planted.   There are wonderful dianthus there too.

Here’s a fairly recent shot of the area, taken from within the Japanese Rock garden.

Truly, it is quite wonderful right now.   But if you zero in on the rocks in front of the sedums, you will see that the maples propagated themselves quite nicely this year.   There are “helicopters” all over the place.

I spent about an hour and a half out in the area, removing the maple seeds, in addition to cleaning out the leaves that blew in last fall.   There were plenty of weeds to pull as well, which is sort of how I justified the rather obsessive compulsive clean-up I was engaged in.

So the irony is I can spend hours hand picking weeds and trash out of a garden, but at the same time pulling my vacuum cleaner out of the closet and running it around the house just seems like too much effort.  I am GOING to do that job as soon as I’m done with this post.  And I am NOT going to photographically document the grass clippings in the hall that rode in on my bare feet, or the dust kitties under my desk, nor the drifts of Ruby’s fur that have accumulated at the edges of the dining room (spring is shedding season, you know).   I shall leave all that to your imaginations.

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I find this ironic too.   This was our weather forecast for this area for this day.

Today: Showers and thunderstorms likely, mainly after 1pm. Some of the storms could be severe. Partly sunny, with a high near 75. Breezy, with a south wind between 22 and 29 mph, with gusts as high as 40 mph. Chance of precipitation is 70%. New rainfall amounts between a tenth and quarter of an inch, except higher amounts possible in thunderstorms.

Correct me if I am wrong, but doesn’t that pretty much sound like “We don’t think it is going to snow, but we really have no clue as to what is going to happen, so be prepared for just about anything.”

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I found this on Facebook the other day, posted by one of my friends.    It struck me as ironic, and wrong headed too.

Karma is a two-way street.

I’m thinking that one ought to look at that statement and contemplate the fact that NO ONE goes through life without hurting anyone.  Sometimes it is purposeful, sometimes it is accidental, sometimes it is a knowing thing, and sometimes it is from lack of attention.  Sometimes a person who hurts you is lashing out because you have hurt them severely.    Lots of scenarios exist here.

So, the question I think one needs to ask is something like, “Who did I hurt that is now watching me be hurt and feeling lucky because God let them watch?”

One can get philosophical here and meditate on the fact that Mass murderers go free, dictators reign seemingly unharmed, nations trample upon other peoples and remain powerful and profitable, Rupert Murdoch and Rush Limbaugh are rich and free.  You could wait a Very Long Time to see your nemesis screw up and pay the price.   Maybe even a couple of life times.

The other thing that occurs to me is that it is a pretty sick thing to find joy in the pain of others, or to sit by, gleefully rubbing your hands together waiting for them to screw up so you can watch them flounder around.

Perhaps the focus should not be so much on “You hurt me!” but rather on “Who have I hurt?”  Perhaps making amends for your  OWN transgressions is a better karmic path than sitting back waiting for the axe to fall on someone who you feel has transgressed against you.

Perhaps.

I could be wrong about that.  That would be ironic, wouldn’t it?

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Now, I believe I shall deploy my vacuum and maybe even a dust rag.  That way, if the tornado develops it will be destroying a nice clean house.

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New Year Retrospectve

There are all sorts of ways to wrap up a year.   I have seen people post the first lines of the first blog post every month of the previous year, and I have seen them post the last line of the first blog post, or the last line of the last post of the month.

For a change, I thought I’d go through my photo collection and select one picture taken each month.  This has actually been a very difficult exercise, as I have no idea whether I should try to select a shot that wraps up the month, or one that is a particularly wonderful shot, or… WHAT???  And how do I limit myself to ONLY ONE picture per month???

The selection criterion seems to be mutable.   So, with no particular rule in mind, this is what I came up with.

While there were several spectacular sunsets during the month, January wrapped up with a fine bonfire.  We sat and sipped home made limoncello while the fire burned.  In the background is the sauna.  To me, this picture is the perfect example of how we try to couple work and pleasure.

February was marked by a lot of snow.   While I did escape it for a little more than a week by running off to Costa Rica, this shot of our pond, mostly frozen, with the gold finches drinking from the open water of the water fall really epitomizes the month for me.

In March, the garden started growing again, I got some cool shots of the rain garden full of water, and there were some more amazing sunsets and sunrises.   But March was the month that Jim learned how to make a Tarte Tatin, and our lives have never been quite the same since.

April is always daffodil time at The Havens.   Since daffodils really are my passion (I have over 100 varieties planted around the place), I don’t see how I can choose anything other than a daffodil picture for this month.   This vaseful came from the gardens, front and back, and in no way represents all of what grows here, since the varieties bloom from the middle of March until the end of April.   This would be the middle of the season.

May means lots of things, but last year the whole thing could be summed up in one word:  Wedding.   Jesse married Lynette in our garden on May 23.   This picture was taken the day before the wedding.

June can be summed up in one word also:  Mallory.   The following shot was prophetic.   The toys scattered about in the background are a feature of the house.   In this room right now there are only four, but I can see a paper ball in the kitchen and I know that there are at least four or five toys in the living room.   There must be parity between the dog and the cat, you know.

So much went on in July I really have a hard time choosing one shot.   Now, there were LOTS of flowers, and bees and bugs, and garden shots.   But the main event of July was the construction of a new water line to serve the Stroll Garden.  I have numerous shots of Jim hard at work digging the thing; but honestly, using a pulaski and a digging bar does not lend itself to flattering photographs.   So I have chosen the positively gorgeous ditch after it was complete to symbolize the work and the worker.

August:   Harvest.   Of grapes, tomatoes, beans, flowers.   And there were thunderstorms, and the cat grew apace.   But out in the labyrinth, the naked ladies came up and decorated the corners.

September was the saddest month of all.   Jim’s brother died, and so did his best friend.   I went to Costa Rica but didn’t take my camera.   When I got home, the colchicums were blooming.

October shows just how depressed I was by all the events of September.   For days at a time, I never took a single photograph.   The clematis seed heads drew me out with their wonderful spiral forms.

The beginning of November wasn’t that much better, although going to see a therapist started helping.  Then we left the country, traveled to Spain and cruised home from there across the Atlantic.   The ocean is amazingly healing.

Home again, life sped up as all my massage clients made up for lost time, and we tried to get ready for Christmas.  It was a quiet holiday for us, but satisfying.   And Christmas day concluded with a young waxing crescent moon.

May you all be happy and healthy in the coming year.  Thank you for visiting me over the past 5 1/2 years.  Hard to believe it has been so long since I started blogging!

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