BOOKS

I keep meaning to list the books I've been reading, and putting it off. So I've probably forgotten half of them, but here is what I remember from this summer:

Housekeeping by Marilynne Robinson. 1981
Winner of the PEN/Hemingway award
Book Description (from Amazon.com)

A modern classic, Housekeeping is the story of Ruth and her younger sister, Lucille, who grow up haphazardly, first under the care of their competent grandmother, then of two comically bumbling great-aunts, and finally of Sylvie, their eccentric and remote aunt. The family house is in the small Far West town of Fingerbone set on a glacial lake, the same lake where their grandfather died in a spectacular train wreck, and their mother drove off a cliff to her death. It is a town "chastened by an outsized landscape and extravagant weather, and chastened again by an awareness that the whole of human history had occurred elsewhere." Ruth and Lucille's struggle toward adulthood beautifully illuminates the price of loss and survival, and the dangerous and deep undertow of transience.

Gilead by Marilynne Robinson. 2004

2005 Pulitzer Prize Winner for Fiction

2004 National Book Critics Circle Winner

Book Description
In 1956, toward the end of Reverend John Ames's life, he begins a letter to his young son, an account of himself and his forebears. Ames is the son of an Iowan preacher and the grandson of a minister who, as a young man in Maine, saw a vision of Christ bound in chains and came west to Kansas to fight for abolition: He "preached men into the Civil War," then, at age fifty, became a chaplain in the Union Army, losing his right eye in battle. Reverend Ames writes to his son about the tension between his father--an ardent pacifist--and his grandfather, whose pistol and bloody shirts, concealed in an army blanket, may be relics from the fight between the abolitionists and those settlers who wanted to vote Kansas into the union as a slave state. And he tells a story of the sacred bonds between fathers and sons, which are tested in his tender and strained relationship with his namesake, John Ames Boughton, his best friend's wayward son.

This is also the tale of another remarkable vision--not a corporeal vision of God but the vision of life as a wondrously strange creation. It tells how wisdom was forged in Ames's soul during his solitary life, and how history lives through generations, pervasively present even when betrayed and forgotten. Gilead is the long-hoped-for second novel by one of our finest writers, a hymn of praise and lamentation to the God-haunted existence that Reverend Ames loves passionately, and from which he will soon part.

Aunt Dimity and the Next of Kin by Nancy Atherton. 2005
Book Description
Lori Shepherd, feeling a touch world-weary, decides to become a volunteer at the Radcliffe Infirmary, where she can spread a little good cheer in the community. There she meets Elizabeth Beacham, a kind, retired legal secretary with no family except a brother who has mysteriously disappeared. Lori is saddened when Miss Beacham passes away suddenly after only a few visits. But when she receives an envelope containing a set of keys and a letter Miss Beacham wrote to her just a few days before her death, it becomes clear that there was much more to the gentle invalid than met the eye. Notices start arriving around the village of the large bequests made before her death. And Lori finds that Miss Beacham’s flat is filled with priceless antiques—an inheritance too precious to remain unclaimed. Armed with a few clues and Aunt Dimity’s help, Lori begins to unearth Miss Beacham’s secrets and, ultimately, the surprising truth about her next-of-kin. In this page-turning installment, Aunt Dimity reaches beyond the grave to help another kindly spirit finally rest in peace.

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince by J.K. Rowling. 2005
Book Description
We could tell you, but then we'd have to Obliviate your memory.

Hadrian's Wall by William Dietrich. 2004
Book Description
The Wall. When the Roman emperor Hadrian first envisioned the awesome edifice in A.D. 122, he used stone, wood, and iron to shield Roman Britannia forever from the unconquered Celtic barbarians. Stretching over seventy miles to divide the island, Hadrian's Wall has maintained the security of the Roman Empire's northern outpost for more than two hundred years. Now a Roman bride has come who will unleash jealousy, passion, and an epic war that will shake a tired and tottering empire to its core.

Tribune Marcus Flavius has secured command at the Wall not through battles fought or wars won, but through his arranged marriage to Valeria, a senator's daughter. He replaces a brutal veteran, Galba Brassidias, an ambitious soldier whose skill in battle is rivaled only by his Machiavellian brilliance. But Galba will do anything it takes to regain his position and dominate the young woman who fascinates and infuriates him.

The intrigue on the Roman side of the Wall is matched by the plotting of Celtic warriors determined to rid their land of the invaders. They are led by the dynamic and mysterious barbarian chieftain Arden Caratacus, a man who seems to know as much about hated Rome as he does of his own people, and who is determined to win the young woman for himself.

Theirs is a story of swirling emotions, ancient warfare, desperate romance, and the final great clash of Roman and Celtic cultures. All will be decided on the field of battle, where the fate of an empire may rest in the strength of Hadrian's Wall.

Classics : A Very Short Introduction by Mary Beard and John Henderson. 2000
Book Description
We are all classicists--we come into touch with the classics on a daily basis: in our culture, politics, medicine, architecture, language, and literature. What are the true roots of these influences, however, and how do our interpretations of these aspects of the classics differ from their original reality? This introduction to the classics begins with a visit to the British Museum to view the frieze which once decorated the Apollo Temple at Bassae. Through these sculptures John Henderson and Mary Beard prompt us to consider the significance of the study of Classics as a means of discovery and enquiry, its value in terms of literature, philosophy, and culture, its source of imagery, and the reasons for the continuation of these images into and beyond the twentieth century. Designed for the general reader and student alike, A Very Short Introduction to Classics challenges readers to adopt a fresh approach to the Classics as a major cultural influence, both in the ancient world and twentieth-century--emphasizing the continuing need to understand and investigate this enduring subject.

And just finished (I'm setting out to read ALL of this Oxford series of "very short introductions" -- wish me luck -- there's about 200 of them).......
Buddhism : A Very Short Introduction by Damien Keown. 2000
Book Description
This accessible volume covers both the teachings of the Buddha and the integration of Buddhism into daily life. What are the distinctive features of Buddhism? What or who is the Buddha, and what are his teachings? How has Buddhist thought developed over the centuries, and how can contemporary dilemmas be faced from a Buddhist perspective? Words such as "karma" and "nirvana" have entered our vocabulary, but what do they really mean? Keown has taught Buddhism at an introductory level for many years, and in this book he provides a lively, challenging response to these frequently asked questions.

Oops -- almost forgot all the books on tape I've listened to in the car to and from work:
There were at least 4 books in the mystery series about Goldy Bear, the caterer, written by Diane Mott Davidson, including Double Shot and Death by Chocolate.

1776 by David McCullough. 2005
Book Description
In this stirring book, David McCullough tells the intensely human story of those who marched with General George Washington in the year of the Declaration of Independence -- when the whole American cause was riding on their success, without which all hope for independence would have been dashed and the noble ideals of the Declaration would have amounted to little more than words on paper.Based on extensive research in both American and British archives, 1776 is a powerful drama written with extraordinary narrative vitality. It is the story of Americans in the ranks, men of every shape, size, and color, farmers, schoolteachers, shoemakers, no-accounts, and mere boys turned soldiers. And it is the story of the King's men, the British commander, William Howe, and his highly disciplined redcoats who looked on their rebel foes with contempt and fought with a valor too little known. Here also is the Revolution as experienced by American Loyalists, Hessian mercenaries, politicians, preachers, traitors, spies, men and women of all kinds caught in the paths of war.

Prodigal Summer by Barbara Kingsolver. 2000
Book Description
Prodigal Summer weaves together three stories of human love within a larger tapestry of lives inhabiting the forested mountains and struggling small farms of southern Appalachia. At the heart of these intertwined narratives is a den of coyotes that have recently migrated into the region. Deanna Wolfe, a reclusive wildlife biologist, watches the forest from her outpost in an isolated mountain cabin where she is caught off-guard by Eddie Bondo, a young hunter who comes to invade her most private spaces and confound her self-assured, solitary life. On a farm several miles down the mountain, another web of lives unfolds as Lusa Maluf Landowski, a bookish city girl turned farmer's wife, finds herself unexpectedly marooned in a strange place where she must declare or lose her attachment to the land. And a few more miles down the road, a pair of elderly, feuding neighbors tend their respective farms and wrangle about God, pesticides, and the complexities of a world neither of them expected.

Over the course of one humid summer, as the urge to procreate overtakes a green and profligate countryside, these characters find connections to one another and to the flora and fauna with which they necessarily share a place. Their discoveries are embedded inside countless intimate lessons of biology, the realities of small farming, and the final, urgent truth that humans are only one part of life on earth.

Past lives -- Alice

A question was posed on one of my groups about intriguing past lives that we have had. And I shared this today....

Past lives -- well ALL of them intrigue me. But there are two or three that have had quite a strong impact on my present life. The first one that I knew was a past life, was a recurring dream that I had starting around age 13. I believe this was triggered because I was the same age in that past life. In this dream I was in a dungeon about to be beheaded. I don't really know why, or understand it all, but I am very afraid. There is another older woman in the dream, but not someone I knew then -- a stranger, but a kind woman, who took the time to talk to me and reassure me that life didn't end at death. Then she is taken out and beheaded. Sometimes I would wake up then, other times I would remain in the dream just long enough to realize that I DID still feel her presence with me. In any case, I always woke up with a profound sense of gratitude for this woman, thinking I will never forget her or what she did for me to take away my fear. I had that dream MANY times throughout my teens and into early adulthood. Then years went by and I didn't have the dream anymore.

When I was 38, I got my first library job out in New York state (Oneonta), and as it happened, Welsh Heritage Week, which I had longed to attend for several years (but couldn't afford), was also being held at a small college in upstate New York that year -- close enough to commute without having to pay for room and board for the week. AND it was the first (and only) time that they had brought folks from Wales to teach the Welsh Folk Dance instructors certification course. I was late getting registered, as this job had come along kind of at the last minute (one of life's mysterious synchronicities, but that's another story in itself), but there happened to be one spot left. I had been involved in folk dancing in Iowa City before taking this job in New York, and I had even tried teaching some Welsh dances that I had found, so I was very keen to learn more about Welsh folk dancing, and become certified to teach it "properly".

I went to Welsh Heritage Week with a strong feeling of "knowing" that I was going to meet someone very significant. At 38, I was HOPING for a romantic relationship, but that isn't how it turned out. I met quite a few "significant" people there. All 11 of us on the course became very close over the week, but the most remarkable, for me, was Alice Williams, our instructor and President of the Welsh Folk Dance Society. There was something about her -- a kind of immediate recognition -- but more than that. It was like seeing myself. I don't know how else to describe it. But I knew that she and I were connected in some profound way that I didn't have any words for. Later on, when I discovered the Michael teachings and read Messages From Michael, I decided that she had to be my Essence Twin. It was like a big puzzle piece falling into place.

We were both so busy, there was never much chance to talk, and she was always surrounded by people, so it was frustrating. I was also commuting rather than being able to stay late in the evenings. (It was about an hour and a half from Oneonta -- I would leave about 10:30 and get home at midnight, then get up at 6am in order to get back there for the morning language classes. I also had undiagnosed and untreated ulcerative colitis, which was manifesting at that time as a constant lowgrade fever and fatigue. Needless to say I was EXHAUSTED by the end of the week!)

But something very special happened on the next to the last day. It was our final adjudication for certification. We were each to teach a dance until now unseen. They were placed face down on a table and we picked our dance at random. Then we were given the lunch hour to prepare. Mine was a dance from a collection published in 1735. The original text was very ambiguous. Two interpretations had been given, and though the directions were clear, neither seemed "right" to me according to the original. So which should I teach not liking either one? After immersing myself in it for about half-an-hour a sudden inspiration came to me. Another one of those unexplainable AHA's that just come to you all at once. I loved it. It was very good. I felt full of confidence and joy. My version was a Baroque interpretation (I had done some Baroque dancing as part of my musicology training in early music.)

The only problem was -- this was an official adjudication. Was I allowed to be creative? Or was I supposed to teach exactly what we had been given? I didn't know, but I DID know that I was going to present my version anyway. So I did. And Alice cut me off somewhat abruptly, saying "I have seen enough. You may sit down." There was a pause while everyone I'd been teaching sat. And utter silence. She looked at me. I waited. I knew that whatever happened I could have done nothing else. Finally Alice said, "You have done me a very great honour. More than anyone else, I see myself in you. I know how tired you are. You could have taken the easy way out and done one of the given interpretations...I want you to submit your notes to me and when it is published, your name will be included. I will tell them that a young lady in America had the conviction to do it her way, and I think she is right. Llongyfarchiadau. Congratulations."

Actually, I had forgotten that part about having the dance published. I'm writing this from the journal I wrote then... The part that created so much wonder, and the part that I will always remember, is Alice saying "I see myself in you." It echoed my own feelings so exactly. I'd been thinking all week -- this is me 30 years from now (she was then 67.) We had only a few brief exchanges later that evening and saying goodbye the following morning (I think I must have stayed that night in a sleeping bag on the floor in somebody's room...) She had wanted each of us to write a brief biography of ourselves, for her to take back to Wales, probably for the WFDS newsletter. I didn't write one. I couldn't. As I said to her on parting, "There's nothing I could say more important than what you already know." And she said, "Exactly."

We exchanged addresses and began a long correspondence. Indeed, she was my lifeline over the next two years in Oneonta, which turned out to be exceedingly stressful and lonely. We would send twenty page letters back and forth. I lived for those letters. She was my mentor and best friend for the next ten years. So what does this have to do with past lives? Well, remember the dream about the dungeon that I'd had as a young girl? About 6 months after meeting Alice, I had the exact same dream again. I hadn't had the dream for years. But I woke up saying "Oh my God!!!! The woman in the dream was Alice!!!!"

I was able to meet her again briefly in 1992 when she took a "round the world" trip with a stop in New York City. I had lost my job in Oneonta in 1990 and moved to the Twin Cities where I had been living with my sister and her partner. It was time to get my own place, though I still hadn't found a permanent job. All my stuff was still in storage in Oneonta. So I rented a big truck -- it was BIG because they didn't have any of the 12 footers available, so I had to take a 15 footer (or maybe it was 18?) -- and drove it from Minneapolis to New York. I stayed with a friend in Rockaway, NJ, and took the train into NYC to see Alice. We only had a few hours. It was very poignant.

There's another thread to pull out of this if you're still reading this far, so bear with me! When the Psychic Friends Network (yes...Dionne Warwick...) came to the Mall of America, they were offering free readings as a promotion. I took a friend, and we stood in line for a good two hours before we got our turn. As it turned out, I was given a reading by a local woman who had been called to fill in. That was perfect for me, because I was looking for someone that I could go to for some answers about a lot of things. We "connected" right off the bat - she had strong Celtic interests, for example, and was a member of Clann Tartan, a local re-enactment group. I decided to ask her about Alice. I really didn't give her any info other than that she was an older woman living in Wales. She "tuned in" for a few seconds, and then asked me "How do you feel about past lives?" I just kind of laughed and said I was fine with that. What she ended up telling me was that we had been "mirror image" twins at one time. When I tell this story to my non-metaphysical friends, I say, whether you believe in psychics or past lives or not, she certainly hit the nail on the head with that phrase in describing how I felt about Alice and our relationship. Like mirror image twins. And like many twins, Alice had the uncanny ability to know how I was feeling, and to know "something was wrong" before she would get my letter telling her so.

The next time we saw each other was in 1996. Welsh Heritage Week was being held in Wales for the first time ever. I wouldn't have even considered going on my very sporadic subbing salary. But a friend of mine (through Welsh activities) called me up out of the blue and said it was "time" I went to Wales. And she was paying for it. I couldn't believe it. (I still marvel at these things!) I went a few days early and stayed in a B&B in Caernarfon across the street from Alice. A month earlier, I had been to the annual 4th of July Gymanfa Ganu (Hymn Singing Festival) at a small Welsh church near Iowa City where I had gone to graduate school. I may have been the accompanist -- I did that one year, but I often went, so I don't remember. Other years they have "hired" me to be the "Reader" -- reading the hymns in Welsh to assist the congregation with pronunciation...) Anyway, on the long drive home, I got this idea for a poem (yes, another one of those weird, almost channeling-like experiences...) I worked on it over the next few weeks, writing both in Welsh and English, and the two "halves" of the poem influencing each other in a sort of mirror image fashion. Yes, the poem was about my relationship with Alice, and I called it "Soul Twins."

I presented Alice with my poem and she was quite touched. That was a wonderful evening, and a very dear memory. I submitted the poem in our Welsh Heritage Week Eisteddfod, which, like the real Eisteddfod, involved a "Chairing of the Bard" ceremony for the best poem, which I won. The following week we went to the "real" National Eisteddfod near Swansea. Of course, Alice was there, and she enjoyed showing me around and introducing me to everyone she knew (and it seemed she knew EVERYONE.) I will forever treasure those memories.

In 1999, I finally got around to getting my overleaves channeled from Lena Stevens. I also asked her about Alice. Among her comments she wrote: "The Wales area ties you in with a time of high ritual and druidic spirituality and healing practices...Relationship with Alice goes back to other lifetimes: you have traded parent/child back and forth; she has been your mentor, and you hers; The last lifetime together she was lost to you in a flood. You have an agreement for mutual support." I emailed Lena to ask for clarification whether Alice was my essence twin or not. And she replied "Alice is not your essence twin but a member of your entity." That blew my theory right out of the water, and left me -- where? With lots of questions certainly. I have a new theory now, and I don't ask Michael about it, because I really don't want to know if it isn't true. I've pondered this endlessly over the years. One answer that came out of some discussion on one the lists, had to do with some channeling about PHYSICAL twins in the original transcripts. It was stated that this relationship continues throughout subsequent lifetimes and can be as intense as the essence twin relationship. Another answer may be that she is a kind of Traveling Companion, except that I feel quite certain she is indeed in my entity. Terri Benning spoke one time about our "Survival Cadence" which are the entity mates that share our casting position on the other two "sides" of the entity. So that's what I think (for now...)

The last time I saw Alice, was on my second trip to Wales in 2000. That was the trip with the Oak Grove church choir, and we did concerts all across north Wales. One "unofficial" concert was on the grounds of Caernarfon Castle. Alice came to see me, and we went to lunch afterward. Our relationship had become a bit strained by then. Her health was very poor, she had been very depressed, and I got the idea that she was going to die soon. So I wrote to her and tried to tell her how much she meant to me, and about the dream in the dungeon, and I think my intensity frightened her. Something she said in reply to that letter seemed to trivialize the whole relationship (from her point of view). To be honest, I was devasted for a while. So that visit was a bit painful. There was a distance between us that hadn't been there before. Her letters came less and less frequently because arthritis made it difficult to write. I tried phoning now and then, but she would be so negative and critical that I had to stop. Now she is a stranger to me again. I don't even know if she is still alive. She would be 79. So my "precognition" about her imminent death was perhaps simply a warning of the end of our relationship. It is still painful to me that we have lost touch.

I must end now. Ironically, I am off to teach Welsh folk dancing. My group is meeting this evening after several months off over the summer. I wish, I wish, I wish.... Maybe I will send her some pictures of our performance with the children at the St. David's Society's annual banquet last March....

Regrounding

I think when all is said and done about Katrina, we are going to witness much that is good and beautiful in people, just as we did after 9-11. In fact, I think it is our responsibility as lightworkers (for lack of a better word) to focus on the positive. I, personally, made it a point after 9-11 to try and defuse the fear and negativity around me. Yes, it takes effort to maintain our own center of balance in the midst of these things.

I am glad that I did not make plans to be out of town visiting family as I usually am over the Labor Day holiday. I spent most of yesterday in tears, and I realize that that is my way of releasing all those feelings -- not just own -- but all that I have been witnessing around me. It is part of regrounding myself. As scholars tend to do, I have been processing, processing, processing. Today I am feeling reconnected to that part of me that Michael has described as being in deep meditation. Today will be a quiet day, doing simple things, alone. Cooking, reading, beading, going for a walk.... The sun is shining, and it is a beautiful day.

Katrina

DREAM:
For the last two nights, my dreams have been full of black people. Downright crowded in fact. I have no impression of a "plot" or any particular activity. Mostly they are just sitting around, or mingling in groups. There may be a sense of "reunions" occuring. I can only speculate that these are people who have died in the hurricane or its aftermath. I am not a "character" in these dreams, I am just "there." So I don't know if I am just observing this because the astral is "busier" than usual, or if I am there to help in some way....

THOUGHTS:
I WANT to help, and I feel mostly frustrated. I feel the paradox of personally living on the edge, paycheck to paycheck, financially extremely vulnerable, and wondering where the money will come from to move and to pay for the higher rent that seems will be inevitable. And yet I am aware that I have wealth beyond measure compared to the loss and deprivation that plagues 90% of the world's population. I have a job. I have a car. I have a computer. I have an education. And I have an obscene amount of "stuff." I can give away my used clothes and other goods, but these items are not wanted by the relief agencies. Money is the best and most helpful donation in times of disaster. Do I eat nothing but rice for a week, and donate the money I've saved? Will that make me feel better? Do I beseech the family to spend no money on Christmas presents this year?

My heart (and eyes) are overflowing today. Being intellectually centered, my emotions are slow to be engaged. But once they are -- it is a bit like the levee breaking. I have expected this, so it is good. Emotion suppressed only leads to illness. I've listened to a lot of anger coming from all quarters, not just the victims. People in my various online groups are quick to point fingers and place the blame on the government, whether local, state, or federal. Others turn around and say how foolish were those who stayed, as if they could have made other choices. Still others rant about global warming and use the disaster to flog our global conscience. My sensitive nature has absorbed all that and personalized it. I am part of this flawed society. There is so much need out there. It overwhelms me.

I have been to church, and I have been berated from the pulpit to do my Christian "duty." Perhaps there are those who need the social justice wake-up call. For myself, I only wanted to feel connected to the spiritual community, and to learn of ways to contribute something besides money. But the only organized activity was check writing. It only served to emphasize my own inability to contribute much of anything. Only my tears, as a witness to the pain and suffering of the world around me.

Before church, I emailed a woman who has done some channeling for us in the private group. I described my dreams about all the black people and asked "I am very curious about what has been going on the last two nights. If you have a chance could you please ask Michael? I'd really like to know if I'm there for a reason, am I just observing, or is it just dreams, or what is going on?" I didn't expect a reply so soon, but here it is, and I am comforted.

CHANNELING:

Laurel, you have found as many have this week that you are truly connected with the other fragments presently extant as well as discarnate. You, indeed, are One. As such you feel the collective grief and sway from the energy of many fragments departing at once. You feel this and expect to feel this as you also identify yourself with the spiritual community. Indeed, you are a part of this community as well as the broader consciousness of a grieving country. The dreams you identify have to do with your expectations as well as the reality of your awareness of newly-discarnate souls. In other words, you expected to see and feel this and indeed you have, but that does not discount its validity, both for you and for the larger reality you operate in.

As far as your role in this, we would say at this time that this is your way of feeling connected with a global event and there is no other part for you to play other than to observe and feel what comes up for you through this experience of observation.

We would say also at this time that there is not so much a pattern to look for in these events, nor is there a “reason” for them. They simply Are. In other words, these acts of nature if you will are simply that and do not signify a larger pattern or series of events that holds meaning for the human race. What it does mean, however, and what can be learned from these experiences, are not so much in them themselves but instead in how one reacts to them. Humans in the larger sense may receive much gratification and growth from responding to such widespread disaster, whether by direct volunteerism, sending money or energy, or simply by being quiet within and reflecting on the occurrence.

You would do well to remember the after-effects of the destruction of the Twin Towers buildings and what that meant to the country and to the world. We do not mean to say that a natural event such as a hurricane bears any resemblance to an act of terrorism, but in reviewing the coming-together of humanity after either such an event, there are similarities that bear study and reflection.

Go then and reflect, each of you, and bear witness to the power not only of destruction but the larger powers of hope and wisdom and love.

Go in peace.

I will bear witness, indeed. And I will take comfort in knowing that there is value in holding all of these things in my heart and mind.

DIARY : Sept. 2

I'm off work today, since it's my Saturday rotation tomorrow.

One of my Welsh students, Melvyn, brought over a bag of produce last night. He and his wife belong to one of those organic farm coops that deliver a weekly box of whatever is in season. Usually several families will go in together as there is too much for one. I haven't joined one, because I don't know anyone living near enough to me to share with. So this was a nice treat! He gave me a very large tomato, some interesting peppers, a few carrots, onions, a garlic bulb, a zucchini, a yellow squash, and 6 beets. (I take it they don't like beets, or else there were a lot of them!) Time to get the cookbooks out.

The cats are on a new diet regimen. I've decided Percy is getting too fat, and since he is now 9 years old, he really needs to be on a "senior" diet. That means I will now have to feed Percy and Lily separately. So Percy now has a place to eat in the bathroom, which is the only place with a door that closes. That also means separate cans of food in the refrigerator. It'll be more expensive, but I'm going to have to quit buying the large cans of cat food. Lily doesn't eat much canned and it would just go to waste. My budget is still quite tight, but when the current cat food stash is gone, I'm going to start using a premium brand -- probably Nutro Max and/or Natural Choice which doesn't use meat by-products. I'm hoping that Percy will also throw up less on a better diet.

I learned of the death of an acquaintance yesterday. The funeral is this afternoon, and since I'm off work I am going to go. Rod Macrae was the mover and shaker behind the Celtic Festival at Murphy's Landing that we had for three wonderful years. Rod was the "Chief" and provided quite a bit of his own money to fund it. I was the "Program Chief" under Rod for the first two years, and program advisor for the third year when I turned it over to Audrey. Oh we had fun! We had hoped it would take off and become an annual event, but bad weather, bad turnout, lack of outside funding, and just plain burn out ended it after three years. I think Rod might have tried to revive it, but I guess he has been dealing with cancer these last few years.

There's a full-time job opening for a reference librarian with the Grand Rapids public library. I'm going to apply. It closes Sept. 23. Full-time reference openings are few and far between. I expect there will be keen competition.

Church choir rehearsals resume this next week.

In the news: the devastation across the Gulf Coast and especially in New Orleans following Hurricane Katrina. I don't have much to give, especially after that car repair pretty much wiped out all my savings, but I'll see what I can spare.

New blog structure

I'm still trying to figure out how to structure this blog. I wish I could create more "sections" on the page for things like photo albums, books I'm reading, channelings, a wish list, my "joy" list, projects and events, as well as being a journal of reflections, philosophy, hopes and fears. But I can't (and this site is free), so I'm going to start using headers, like "DIARY" or "BOOKS" followed by a colon as part of the title of the post. I don't know how often I'll post these. Maybe once a week for the diary, once a month for books, and channeling whenever it happens (once I've caught up with all the PAST channeling I'd like to post). And if you're not interested in any of these, you'll know to skip them....

The DIARY will simply be a list of things happening (or to be done) in my outer life. It might include ongoing projects, current events in the news, or topics of discussion in my online groups. Probably only of interest to family and friends who want to know what I'm DOING.

The JOURNAL will be a record of my thoughts on various topics, whether philosophical, spiritual, emotional, or whatever. This is where I'll tell about dreams, and manifesting, and intuitive/ metaphysical experiences, synchronicities, and memories. In other words -- my inner life.

CHANNELING : I'm separating these out from the journal, just because I may or may not comment on them.

QUOTES : Every once in a while I may simply post a poem or quote that I like.

BOOKS will keep track of what I'm reading.

I may come up with some other headings later, as needed. So on with the blog.......