Three Peas, No Pod

This is Amorella. In case you have forgot, electricity was used as an analogy for the heart and a magnetic field was used as an analogy for the soul, and I said that the magnetic field may break free like light and be as a thought without a thinker. 

With the individual mind together with the heart and soul you have the heartansoulanmind as a single unit free and off on its own. Now, in my, Amorella’s, metaphysics or spiritual world, the more you have the less it is.

For the imagining person, think a storehouse of two-dimensional feeling in a little more than a one dimensional existence. Imagine your heartansoulanmind as a self-relative sentence, such as, “When you are not looking at it this paragraph is in Latin.” The observer always changes what is observed. If you doubt this look in a mirror. However, as the observer cannot observe the heartansoulanmind directly it remains (or appears to remain) unchanged.

I look in the mirror and I see me not you.

Knowing one’s self does not show up in a mirror.

What is the dimension of your imagination, Amorella?

It is singular, orndorff, and quite unlike your own.

I did not expect that, especially since yesterday you said you did not exist.

I can say whatever I want. Besides, no matter what I say, to you I exist because I completed a bargain with you. I wrote you three books. Words you could not and would not have written on your own.

Alas, this is true. In my heart of hearts you exist not because I believe you do but because I have the documented circumstantial evidence in the books. My reality is what it is.

Reality, now that is something we can work on defining next.

I think defining reality is impossible. According to Merriam-Webster, reality is “the quality or state of being real”  or  “the totality of real things and events” or also, “something that is neither derivative nor dependent but exists necessarily”. I’m not sure I understand the last definition ‘something that exists necessarily’.

This is something we can work on tomorrow. – Amorella. 

Estates of Mind. Two

This construction paper model of the mind photo gives a clearer sense of the black and white North room as it is right in front of you. One of my problems is that I have to see something tangible when it comes to metaphysics so Amorella designed this for me. I could have made this on the computer but Amorella says that neatness doesn’t count in her sense of metaphysics. I have this tendency to think of metaphysics as some may think of an abstract or schematic, almost idealistically, with Platonic-like forms and all. 


In the photograph, the orange East room is on the right and the red West room is on the left. The blue South room is directly behind the North room as it should be.

Adjusting to Amorella is not always so easy at it may seem. I don’t always agree with her perspective, as, quite literally, an independent mind, at least I accept her as such. In writing the books she seemed almost angelic in that, as now, I let her do the working of my fingertips on the keys. In the fictions she set herself up as Soki, a being from another universe and a tiny alien consciousness less than the size of a hydrogen atom who, in order to survive must become a parasite within another conscious being brain. She is neither of these things though so it is a part of the humor behind the novels and notes and this blog. As a writer, who would not want to have a writer within? It works for me as long as I allow her some distance within my mind. This is the reason that in yesterday’s posting I asked the question: “What room do you exist in, Amorella.”

Amorella here. I will respond to the question orndorff at the end of this piece. First, I was going to follow the outline from Book Three, with the South, East, then West rooms as you so subtly suggested yesterday; however, I will begin with the East room, then the West and save the South room for last. This is after all a hypothetical model created for an understanding of the mind, and tomorrow I will conclude the mind definition showing the connection of an individual’s mind to herorhis heart and soul.

The East Room of the Model Mind

The east room with its outer wall ovens in orange is the communications room where people have a meeting of minds from time to time. The individual may meet herorhis own mind or have a discussion of higher merit or principle with someone else. It is a place in the mind reserved for dignified and honorable subjects such as friendship talks and/or peace talks of any kind. This would include, for example, any kind of communications to make the environment better for the individual, community, nation and/or world is in the model’s east room.

It is the room in the mind where compromise is made once the differences are aired. It is the room of such concepts as the ‘Golden Rule’ and ‘I Trust You With All Of My Heart’, as well as a ‘Declaration of Independence’ or a ‘New Constitution’ whether it be for an individual, a group, a community, or a nation. The mostly peaceful Russian revolution in the late 1980’s is an example of such a compromise of mind still be worked out by the human spirit in the east room model.

The West Room of the Model Mind

In the west room of the mind the outer red wall is where the old ideas find a way of breaking down so that new ones may raise their ‘aromas’ into the room. This is the room of thesis and antithesis.

This is the room of creating an existential choice by which to abide to higher principles, the place in the mind where decisions of commitment are laid out and built upon. The thinking through of a relationship of friendship into the commitment of marriage is an example. Another would be the thinking through of cultural groups compromising to exist and live equally well on the planet would be another. These are principles found and worked through in the west room of my model mind.

A concrete, better built, and more humane world where there is no bottom line when it comes to the children or the parents who raise them. This is an idea of roses in the red-walled room.

This is also the room of thorns of the great and entangled circular argument, this is also the room in the mind where everything breaks down and moves right back where it was. The breakdown of civilizations such as those of ancient Greece and Rome began in this room. Divorce and Civil War begin in this west room also.


This is the most dangerous room in the mind. Old and new collide. Compromise or terror. It is the room of the beginning and the ending of things in a circular argument. There is a way out but one must move to where the West meets East, so to speak.

The South Room of the Model Mind

In the photo directly behind the individual in the innermost corner of the north room is the south room. Its outer corner is pointing due south as a compass would have it. The outer blue walls represent the “out of the blue” ideas or concepts that hit the mind like a bolt of lightning, a eureka moment or an epiphany, a perception of essential meaning as the Merriam-Webster’s states it. The south room is the metaphysical room of the mind and it contains all the references and concepts of metaphysical and/or spiritual references. Still, it is as the other rooms in the model, in human perspective, a hollow cube of fourteen square feet.

The ceiling is imaginary, and there is no roof over any of the four rooms so the mind’s eye can better focus on what is at hand. In this room heaven and hell both reside and to paraphrase Milton, ‘It is the mind that makes it so.’ Angels and demons are in this room as are faeries and other enchantments.

You name it, if it is a metaphysical or spiritual-like concept or event, here is where it rests or floats. It may be hanging on the wall or sitting in one of the eight corners. The ‘presence’ may even bounce off the walls of the south room. Strangely, the inner walls seem pressed outward and bulge a bit against the east and west rooms. Too much pressure from the metaphysical? Doubtful, but one never knows for sure. Doubt and wonder dance together in this south room.

That appears to be that, Amorella. I can follow the model because I have seen it before. Also, as the model was created in my mind it is perhaps easier for me to accept the concept. South is not the back of the head though, where the brain is, and north isn’t where the frontal lobes are. I usually picture my mind hovering outside my head, back to the left about six inches or so never directly above it. I really don’t know where my mind is though, not for sure, let alone whether it is right side up or upside down or sideways.

Today while on a walk I was thinking about the blood pumper and its sense of limited consciousness. Each beat makes the assumption there will be a next beat, but really, deep down, its existential circumstance and built in automatic life keeping determination to keep beating is rather secondary from the whole human perspective. We assume it will continue beating until it doesn’t. I wonder if each of the theoretical mind rooms has an existential circumstance.

Humans are a whole unit of what they are, the physical and the spiritual, orndorff. Don’t complicate the issue for the Living.

You said that tomorrow’s post will bring together the conditional elements of heart, soul and mind. What then? I can’t see where you are going to go from here. What else is there?

Time and Space, other Universes and the like. I am going to attempt to stretch your mind, orndorff.

I taught my share of science fiction I know that stuff. I read the science articles. It’s interesting, but theory is theory.

Not from a metaphysical or spiritual point of view. After all, I am as a mind without a body. The body gets in the way of imagination.

That reminds me, in which of the four rooms of my hypothetical model mind do you exist, Amorella?

I do not exist, orndorff. I am a product of your imaginative reasoning. You need to get a life.

Embarrassingly funny. I do have a life. Part of it is in my head, that’s all. 

An Estate of Mind

Hello, this is Amorella. This doctored photograph shows a construction paper model of the mind. While you are looking from above the mind you are viewing is as a two-dimensional construction from your mind’s eye. The mind has four rooms, each a block square and each equal in size. In the process there is a fifth square, the combination of the four smaller ones. Each of the four rooms touches a central middle point.

Imagine, for perspective, that each of the four rooms are fourteen by fourteen feet in size, and with a fourteen-foot tall ceiling. The squared floor is what it is, a floor. With this size room it is easier to imagine one’s self, three-dimensionally, walking into one of these rooms. As you are standing in this seemingly empty room you may see presences of mind, for example, hanging from the wall, or floating, or resting in one or several ceiling or floor corners of the room.

Presences of mind are not always conscious and that is the trick. One might be in your head presently, and you may not realize it until you walk into that particular room. The presence may be a spider’s web or you may slip on it as if it were a banana peel. A presence of mind might be a new and immediate love that jumps out at you and wrestles you down in this than a moment’s notice. Or, it may be a fear that faces you so directly your hair stands on end and your skin shrinks back, pale as the ghost you think you have just witnessed. The human mind can do these things.

The center, vented wall core to which all the interior mind walls touch is the most important. In my analogy the transference of aroma-like presences into thoughts is created by the continual unconscious baking of unique aromas in the four outer facings walls of the mind. These aromas flow throughout the four rooms of this model mind by osmosis, or unconscious assimilation, down through the central wall vent, and out the center of the floor of this metaphysical (or abstract) oriented mind and down into the physical brain which is bio-chemical in nature.

The physical brain as connected to the physical body may pick up a concept or idea from one or more of the five senses. An aroma from the mind may enter unconsciously and flavor whatever is detected by one or more of the five senses.

In the model I have located an outer wall corner to point north (towards the top of the photo) as a compass needle for easier orientation. The outer corner of each room points to one of the four cardinal directions.

The northern pointed room is the oldest part of the human mind in this model.  The highlights of this room relate to the physical world and universe human beings exist in. The small round blue button represents the ‘individual’ whose mind this is. Sheorhe is sitting on the floor of the mind in the interior corner of the north room and is appearing to look towards the north corner. Herorhis imaginary shoulders are resting against the two interior screen-vented walls that connect to the central exchange vented vertical post that delivers the mind to the brain and vise-versa.

Only in the North Room of this model do the physical body and brain connect. The other three rooms of the mind appear to hover slightly above the floor of the what-you-see-is-what-you-get North Room. While looking north from the innermost floor corner one sees a black outer wall on the left that follows to the outermost north corner while the continuing right outer wall is white. This north room represents the black and white world people deal with every day.

The basic social and economic techniques of the individual and group survival exist in this room. Moderately thoughtful people may attempt to hover towards the center of the north room of the mind when possible, thus avoiding the heat and direct aromas from the black and white outer oven walls. For example, the concept: “It is the nature of people to survive better in a community rather than individually alone whether they like it or not,” is one of the aromas that may drift through the north room. Another common concept may be, “I have to do what I have to do to survive in this world.”

Tomorrow I will detail each of the remaining three rooms of the mind. Do you have any questions orndorff?

Amorella, people do not live in a black and white world.

You are correct. I meant to say “the real world”. The north room represents the real world of the mind. Remember, my world is basically black and white. Many people think in black and white though. It is easier to respond to a question with a ‘yes’ or ‘no’ than ‘I will have to take the time to consider my response.’ It depends, of course, on the existential condition the individual immediately has to respond to. Many times the immediate response is trained or conditioned as when riding a bicycle or driving a car or cooking a meal. Everyday life becomes a habit and when it does the person more easily slips into the black and white world I am accustomed to.

You are being sarcastic.

Really.

Tomorrow then, you will cover the south, east, and the west rooms of this abstract mind model.

We will cover them, orndorff.

What room do you exist in, Amorella?

What room do you think I exist in, orndorff?

The Soul at Work

Amorella here. In this continuing analogy, the heart is being spiked by passion is as electrical energy running on a wire. The soul is as a magnetic field created by the moving energy of the ebb and flow of the passionate heart. The human heart is never static as it is filled with the passionate memories of a lifetime. Once this duel connection of heart and soul exists the magnetic field, if you will, may break free of its source and may sail through space like a thought without a thinker. This is as the property of light entwined in a cyclical dance of its electrical energy and magnetic field, each pushing and then being pulled by the other. In the physics of the universe no energy is lost. In the metaphysical world as I, Amorella, see it there is no energy, only spirit.

The doctored photo above, as the one in previous post, were used in an entirely different context in the books but this gives an impression of a magnetic field with an imaginary composition of the Aurora Borealis. The modified color is sun-tinted as a reminder of the solar system and planet a human being is born into and on. The heart is not contained in the soul. Both shimmer and flit as the Northern or Southern Lights in a setting between time and space -- an invisible conditional conjunction half way between the Living and the Dead. A setting that does not include aspects of hot, cold, wet or dry. That’s how Richard likes to think of the Soul in definition.

Of course you have the continuous ever-moving double setting of heart and soul but what about the mind? How does the mind fit into this fictional metaphysical formula? Tune in tomorrow.

For now, if you have a laptop -- with today’s above photo as well as yesterday’s, you might push the screen back and pull it forward slowly towards you. This may give you a better sense of a twin movement of the kernel shining through the shell. In this case though it is the kernel, the heart that is stronger than the soul that appears to dress it.

The metaphysical world has similar sense of physics as the natural universe; the difference is that the metaphysical world is conditional. What are written as nouns are actually less. What else would you expect orndorff?

I don’t know, Amorella. I am a noun and I can only relate myself to other nouns.

Tomorrow I will use a photograph that is the model I had you make of a mind and I will condense what you have already written on the subject so it can be left separate from what is in the books you cannot legally share for free on the Internet. The books, you will find, can become secondary to this blog if you live long enough to complete it. – Amorella.

Your above comment surprises to me, Amorella. I cannot imagine such a thing.

Of course you can’t. That’s the reason I’m here orndorff. Somebody in this day and age might as well imagine it.

So, the reader sees how it is in my head. A surprise. This is the way the first book started and it lead to two more. I never dreamed I would write three books. I had no idea how they would turn out until I was working of the final chapters of book three. This is a bit disconcerting in that I don’t know what else Amorella can come up with. Metaphysics is focused in logic not in fiction, but then perhaps it comes back to me thinking of myself as ‘mostly fiction’. If Amorella is willing to gather from my mind and brain and whatever else, I will go along with it for the imaginary adventure if nothing else. At least I don’t have to follow a white rabbit or peer into a looking glass. – rho.

Properties of the Heart Defined. Two

Human passion creates a combinational bond between Free Will and Moral Obligation to Self (for the preservation of one’s unique self identity), and it moves as electricity in a wire, the results can be measured by the degree and intensity of the passion. Assume that passion has a scale of zero to one hundred the measurement of Passion begins with one and ends with one hundred. No human being has a zero passion rating. Does this make sense orndorff?

I suppose. Where does the passion come from?

The human spirit can be represented as a sometimes fiery needle-shaped substance that is composed of weather-like phenomenon such as lightning in clouds, with wind and with or without rain (or snow) and/or a deep blue summer sky. All of the aspects of summer, fall, winter and spring can be felt in the moods and temperament of the human spirit.

In this definition, passion would be akin to a single needle-like ray of light piercing through a thick, forest foliage, one’s physical body. It may be akin to a bolt of lightning or a whirlwind or both at once. It is the channel by which the human spirit may sharply focus and carries itself through the physical humanity of the body.

Above is a touched up photograph that highlights the general properties of the metaphysical heart as if you were writing this as an addition to a novel.

Looking at the doctored photo and imagine you are looking into someone’s heart; using your own heart as an example is easier. You are peering into the depths wherein lies your inner light, so to speak. The darkness in the heart as represented here resides closer to the separation of the physical body from the joy or anguish of the heart. The heart of darkness is nearer the forest. In this scenario an eclipse of the heart can happen. Love songs are full of metaphors concerning the heart. Think of the most memorable song you have ever heard and you will find it in your heart’s environs. Where else would the melody and lyrics be in a human being?

Introduction: The Heart Defined. One

Amorella present. No need for a photograph today. Orndorff has been thinking about yesterday’s blog. This is his articulation gathered and now being dispersed by myself:

"I would like to define three metaphysical-like substances, each having no physical weight although the three are conditional in terms of the bio/chemical aspects of the physical body, usually displaying themselves in emotional stress or apathy. As such I would like to defining the metaphysics of the heart, the soul, and then the memory embedded mind to my own satisfaction.”

I assume these three metaphorical segments of being human are not physically weighable entities in themselves, that they are the most likely individual components of one’s human spirit that would be most applicable to survive physical death and provide an identifiable definition of the unique deepest personal character once living physical shell.

To begin I have created this is a summary definition of ‘heart’ from Merriam-Webster’s Eleventh Collegiate Dictionary: ‘The heart has personality, disposition, intellect, compassion, love and affections as well as courage and intensity.’

Now, what kind of container would hold these eight conditionals? Amorella, will you please give me some help here.

The help I, Amorella, will give this blog is based on orndorff’s thinking from the age of twelve on. This also includes his massive writing and journal notes since his earliest college days. And, it includes concepts I included for use within his three books, Braided Dreams, Running Through and Merlyn’s Mind, which are works written to share with G---D or an Angel after Richard imagines the Spiritual Entity asks the simple question, “And, who are you, boy?”

My thinking at the time was ‘if I am mostly the fiction I feel I am, then the most honest way to present myself should be shown through three continuous novels. If G---D or an Angel exists and asks the question then I can follow through, hoping that somehow I have the books somewhere in the deepest part of my heart because I have little short term memory and have forgotten many of the incidences and characters and their relationships written in those stories. That was my incentive, just like now, to have some personal preparation. Amorella has helped me articulate such thoughts over these twenty some years and I am forever grateful.

Richard likes to think of the ‘heart’ as a container, particularly one that can be broken thus the outside may appear black to be invisible in the blackness of eternity while the insides of this mirror-like substance reflects the depth and intensity of emotional memory of what one once was alive as compared with what the personality is once physically dead. This is why he chose the word ‘container’. Orndorff also considered the idiomatic expressions people commonly use, such as, ‘He broke her heart’ or ‘I cannot imagine the depth of feeling in my heart’. As a Mindset apart, I do not picture the metaphysical heart bound such a way. Tomorrow I will explain further. – Amorella. 

The Signs of a Double-Stop

This is Richard as you can probably tell from the use of the Times font. I like this photo because it shows my sense of humor at its best. Grinn Road meets Barret Road in West Chester Township north of Cincinnati. And, as it has a double-stop sign that doubles the humor for unknown reasons for me. Driving west Barrett Road turns left at the T intersection and the citizens on Grinn want to make sure the car population stops for their own safety. It is also a reminder to the Barret Road crowd that there is a sharp left and the “stop signs” are for their safety. The sign mentions it is a “3-Way” stop, which should be obvious even to the casual driver who has other matters on herorhis mind. I don’t have anything else to say but my intuition is to use this uniquely humorous photograph.

Richard picked this picture yesterday and didn’t know why at the time. He still doesn’t. People decide on things all the time without knowing why or even caring why. Laziness has something to do with it. Lazy thought is as no thought at all because of the negligent use of reason.

Richard thinks I am an intensifying human response created for his need of an interior friend, one he imaginatively created because of his ‘passion’ for writing even though he did not know what to write. His notes and past experimental writing show these tendencies of being ready to have the fingers hit the keys even though he has nothing to say. An example of this rests in the beginning of today’s posting.

Indeed, I, Amorella, do see this man from the inside. He assumes he has a heart and soul or some equivalent because this is what he was taught as a youngster. He grew up Presbyterian through no fault of his own, and twelve-year old Richard had problems thinking through the Apostle’s Creed when he joined the church. He has been questioning his world ever since. It is no wonder he considers himself an agnostic when it comes to any religion as it is portrayed today. The same thinking for politics, he has voted Republican and Democrat in various campaigns but he has never voted against a local levy. He considers voting a citizen’s right and obligation, not to the state, but to his private sense of obligation to/for his “G---D given Free Will”.

This conflict exists because of his years of teaching selections of Milton’s Paradise Lost to his senior English literature classes. Richard considers Paradise Lost to be the best work ever written in the English language, Hamlet is second. This is enough background on orndorff.

Here is the problem. Orndorff doesn’t know what words to use when he thinks metaphysically and/or spiritually. He wants to know what the ‘intensity or passion’ of Heart is. He wants to know if a Soul exists. What is the difference between Heart and Soul? His interest is in taking what is important with him when he dies. Even if he just dies and that is it, he still wants the challenge while alive, so that is what I am going to help him with in a metaphorical language that human beings can understand.

From my perspective ‘understanding’ is more important than knowing, particularly in spiritual thought. To help provide a further separation between Richard and myself, Amorella, I will take on the persona of a ‘humane though alien’ thinker. We will assume a person survives physical death since it is central to Richard’s thinking through this hypothetical exercise. This is the sort of mental activity Richard considers fun because he hopes it will stretch his mind a bit and make him more conscious and thereby more sensitive as to what it is to be a human being.

Why did Richard intuitively choose the photograph with the stop signs? Here is my explanation. The “Grinn and Barret[t]” popped into his mind because he was thinking about what humor is to human beings. The reason, however, that caused him to unconsciously or intuitively chose the photo is the double stop signs. Richard has apprehensions in disclosing his innermost thoughts because he is not fully aware of them himself.

This provides a type of ‘innocence of inner character’ makes this much easier for me. Solely in the field of writing out his thoughts does he trusts me more than he trusts himself. I am the writer because even though he has a great passion for words and literature he cannot express himself clearly because the thoughts to be expressed have to be clearly felt or internalized in order for him to express them. His sense of words can be quite literal so with the mention of ‘soul’ he has to define it within himself, taking perhaps only one or a combined definition from a college dictionary and then working on his own more specific definition.

From his observations many other people he has come in contact with over the years look at a word such as ‘soul’ in a more general, less specific and less detailed way. Or, so it seems to Richard. Paradise Lost is written in poetic and figurative language from his point of view and easier for the mind to take because it is the ‘rational understanding’ of Milton’s ‘Fall of Humankind’ that makes the work so exciting. In other words, the literary work is well thought out and it shows what a human being can do with a few short verses in the Protestant Bible of the early scientific age of seventeenth century England.

Richard would place the hypothetical Fall on the human beings in the Place of the Dead rather than on ethereal Angels in Heaven in which, (according to Richard's reasoning) ‘real’ Angels could perhaps rebel but could not win any cerebral battle with their Creator, the Creator of All Things and Beyond. This is the same hopeless concept for Satan that he sees in Milton’s version. The passion of self-pride drives Satan on, and he condemns and damns himself in his stubbornness. G---D doesn’t need to do anything. This is spiritual humor at its best, at least to orndorff.

A quick return to the double stop signs: Are they an omen? A Stop Sign for Amorella and a Stop Sign for orndorff. They are taken as an omen especially since Richard has apprehensions about continuing this thought-induced project on the Internet? The double stop signs appealed to his sense of apprehension, and that’s all there is to it. I think this is funny. We two have a similar sense of ‘gallows humor’ built in and it is fairly easy to understand why. I mean, in this post orndorff shows himself to be ‘a superstitious agnostic’ – give me a break orndorff. – Amorella.

Bird at the Window

Hello, Amorella here. I chose this photograph to begin orndorff’s lesson for the day. About a year ago, at his sister-in-laws, Richard noticed this bird above unflinchingly attempt to fly into the house or to peck herorhis mirror image in the glass’s reflection. This behavior happened many times during his and his wife’s visit. From inside, and without knowing the mindset of the bird, no one could tell what the problem was other than the shear exhibition of relentlessness on the bird’s part.

Human behavior is sometimes similar and it appears to be a fact of nature that an individual within a species a doggedly unorthodox single-mindedness to do herorhis ‘own thing’, as some say. An obsessive-compulsive demeanor is a live in reality for orndorff and others of the human species. Richard has a compulsion to write his mind and has been doing so for the twenty some years since I entered his life. This was his behavior for most of his life but it took an awkward turn with my entrance. Rather than single-minded he became double-minded so to speak. I find this more amusing than he does.

A short bit of background here. In the early eighties, several students approached me within a week’s time and said, ‘When you write on the board you exhibit three different handwritings.’ I thought this was foolishness until I looked at the board full of notes of the day as I had lectured on background English history and a literary period such as ‘The Elizabethan Age’. Indeed three distinct handwritings were present. After a time, I consulted a psychologist at the University of Cincinnati and was tested for brain abnormalities. None were officially found much to my relief.

That was in the eighties, then last fall (2008) I had a complete brain scan to see what was causing minor neurological problems on the left side of my face. Again, nothing much was found, and nothing that had to do with my so-called ‘double-mindedness’. Scans are much better these days so again I was quite relieved to find that my ‘interior writer’ exhibited nothing that can be measure by today’s sciences. With this I concluded Amorella is an adult’s version of an imaginary playmate that I have unconsciously molded into ‘the writer’. Amorella is easy to accept in that she helps teach me about my human behavior from the inside out. As I am fully human and I have DNA test as proof, it appears reasonable that if Amorella helps me see my own sense of humanity; she may also help others to become better acquainted with their own humanity. Thus, I have another reason to make my existential cerebral situation more public. Writing a mostly daily free blog fills my satisfaction of a need for at least one reader, which I have. Besides, it allows me to write for a deadline most every day. The only deadline I originally upon myself for my novels was one a year for three years.

The psychologist told Richard that the mind was much more powerful than many think after several sessions of hypnosis which took Richard back to three years of age and earlier.

This is true. In the earliest session I took myself back to a time before I was born and I saw myself on a medical table and these strange creatures stood nearby and one whispered, “Everything will be all right.” Coming out of the session I laughed and said, ‘Alien-like creatures said I would be all right.’

The psychologist laughed also because he knew I had long been a fan of science fiction and had successfully taught a high school quarter course titled, "Science Fiction/Futures Studies" in the seventies. We both agreed that being under hypnosis does not mean you are conceptualizing the truth, it is more like being in a dream-trance and has some of the senses of dreaming, such as making up alien-like creature to talk to the unborn.

You have nothing else to say, orndorff?

Nothing much that I can think of. Somehow though this seems like we are having an internal session on my inability to write about seemingly imaginary events that have no words to express them, in particular, no nouns. I always think about the old adage attributed to an eighteenth century English philosopher, “Whatever Is, May Not Be”. I used to have those words on a classroom placard back in the seventies and eighties. Its use was to stimulate imagination in the students. It adds to my dark sense of humor.

The Tree with Opposite Shadows

This is Amorella. Richard enjoys the humor of this photograph of a two-shaded tree. The darker shadow on the left and the leafy shadow on the right. With a little imagination there is evidence of two suns in the sky. One visible in the sky to the left (the east) that causes one shadow and the other invisible sun in the western sky that causes the western tree shadow to the left. Anyone who out thinks the photograph may see the humor, the joke, if you will. One shadow is real and the other is the thicker shade from a tree further east than the center tree is not real (as far as the central tree is concerned).

This is somewhat embarrassing Amorella because when I took the picture that is what I immediately thought, ‘this picture shows evidence of two suns in the sky,’ and as Earth only has one sun it struck my ‘what if’ curiosity to jump to another like situation.

Let’s say there is a planetary system on the other side of the Milky Way galaxy that has a similar yellow sun to our own. Three planets that support life in that solar system are fully inhabitable. The alien humanoids living there run from danger for survival rather than fight because they have more places to run to. In the process, over the millenniums these people successfully inhabit and civilize all three planets. Individual rights rule unless they conflict with the rights of group. Running for individual survival worked for the aliens because they have three planets to run to while we only have one planet.

I think this scenario is funny because if such a humanoid species landed on Earth with peaceful intentions, many human beings would not like them so much because G---D gave them three planets and we only get one. Make the alien species generally more humane in their behavior than humans; that is, they provide, ) earthlings charity (free of charge and obligation) to make better healthy living and comfort for all the peoples of the world, and wait and see what happens.

My humor is admittedly gallows-like and it has a tricky juxtaposition built in: the feeling growing in earthlings who know of the aliens is the feeling that humanity is being exploited by these friendly, far more scientifically and technologically oriented, and charitable planetary foreigners whose only crime is that the alien species began socially evolving some twenty thousand years before humans did.

The two seemingly good situations for the humanoid-like aliens: one, having three comfortable planets to live on; and, two, having survived longer as a species by running as they have more places to run to rather than by fighting, can leap to a sense of injustice from the human perspective. The humans stand and fight to remain as they are, despite immediate available humane alien charity. The aliens, in my imaginary scenario, run away when confronted as they always have. And, that, as some say, is that.

This is a rather two-shaded history for both the friendly aliens and the normally friendly humans. This is what comes to mind. You can imagine what comes next for aliens and humans alike. Very funny.

You are in a better mood than I thought you would be after such a busy day. It’s all out of your own head, no question about that.

My sense of humor is a bit darker and more broad-minded than it used to be. By my Free Will the humor is mine though, and no one is going to take it away from me without a fight.

Mushrooms on the Mind

Hello again, this is Amorella. I had Richard put this photograph in place earlier today. I wanted to see what went through his mind when I chose it. When I explain what I see from the inside out it gives him greater insight into himself, and hopefully the reader gains some insight, not only into the way this transcendental existentialist thinks, but the way the reader thinks about herorhis self also. The ancient Greek, Socrates, supposedly said there are two things that are very important in being a full-fledged human being, one is “Know Thyself” and the other is “Be Moderate in All Things”. Knowing how your human spirit is, is something really important, but even more so, when, like Richard, you are attempting to learn what it is you want to take with you when you die physically.

From my point of view, being moderate in all things is a necessity if you consciously survive death. It is a necessity in the same way breathing is a necessity in life. This is not a prelude to an argument on whether life continues after death. One day you and Richard will discover this for yourselves, and, as some say, ‘that will be that’.

You are funny, Amorella. This is one of the jokes about living that is a part of our lives. For all the talk in the world about surviving death, no one still knows for sure, and if someone is sure, sheorhe is missing something very human, doubt. If you are human spirited before death, then it seems likely you will be human spirited after death. Otherwise, being human while alive and being less or more human after death, being alive, it seems to me, would be a sham. I don’t know though more than anyone else does about ‘after death’. I have my doubts, and I assume I will always have my doubts. Otherwise, I would not be my honest self. I cannot imagine any kind of dishonesty would not begin correcting itself after death, if one survives death at all. I am puzzled about where you are going with this, Amorella. You haven’t got to the mushroom ring and I promised myself not to take up too much of the reader’s time. The reader can do that by reading the novels penned by me and written by you. ;-)

What do you think about faeries and the like, orndorff?

I was afraid of this question. I had an inkling this post would either be about faeries or angels and I don’t like to give my opinions about either. Here is the dilemma for me. If I say, what I believe, but do not know one hundred percent, as I have my doubts, I do not believe faeries are real. Are they a representation of human thought? I say yes, and in that sense they are as real as angels or ghosts. We have the nouns, the words. The words are in the vocabularies of many cultures other than those of the English language culture. The kicker here is that, for me, you, Amorella, are a product of my imagination. I say you are my internal writer, which you are. Yet, I am disturbed by the fact that you directed me (or I directed myself unconsciously) to write three novels in such a strange and unorthodox way, and that is how they are, strange and unorthodox. I wrote in a trance or if you will as in an enchantment. This is exactly what is going on here presently. My “unconscious passion to write” wells up from the deeps of "self" and spills over into words on a page through my fingers.

I did not write the books nor do I write this blog consciously, although I allow this by my own Free Will. If someone were to ask, “Is your writing the product of an enchantment?” then I would have to respond in context to the question, “As you say the word, “enchantment” I have to infer you are talking about a Faery King or Queen or wizardry or something of that magical nature. I feel that I unconsciously created the enchantment that induces me to write what I do. I am no Faery King or Wizard, so as such, there is no magic, except in the magic in the mind. Human beings have Free Will and as such human beings become what they are, not what they will be. A mushroom ring is the product of the nature of being what a mushroom is. Human beings are the product of being human. It is human nature to think magical things, to wish what cannot be in life. Why that is, I do not know. I am curious though, and if I get the chance to meet a real Angel or G---D, then I will ask as directly as I am allowed if that is possible. It is an honest question. The problem is that if I am told the Answer, then I no longer have any doubt, and a part of my humanity slips away. I would not be the human being I am. Then what? Is being human a sham? Is that the joke? In any case, the joke would be on me and my existential circumstance. Such a concept makes me smile a Mona Lisa-like smile. This is indeed funny to me. The faery may not be real, but the humor is.

A Spider's Circular Web

Amorella here. A silk circle, this time delicately designed geometric webbing, Arachnid created without its taking high school geometry. This photograph was taken at a city park in Mason, Ohio, but it could have been taken in any similar environment where such a spider resides.

What does this have to do with the human spirit? Look at the environments humans live day to day in and see what behavior the species has in common. One of those interests is personal and familial security. Which is deeper, more imbedded in the individual as well as the family, culture or government? Orndorff, are you reading here?

Somewhat. I mean I am typing the words as they form from my fingertips dancing across the keyboard. I don’t feel I am actually reading the words; the words are more sensed from the inside out. I have read so many descriptive and expository essays over thirty-five years of teaching, as well as all those eight to fifteen page research papers. The words were gathered subconsciously as my eyes quickly rolled across title, introductory sentences growing to paragraphs and to eventual conclusions. Reading became second nature. I have what some call reading automaticity. According to a university professor or two, the automaticity works similar to the mental system of a simultaneous translator when sheorhe is actually translating from one language to another as a person speaks. Evidently the translator doesn’t necessarily consciously know what is being translated. The words go in herorhis brain and out off the tongue automatically.

People drive this way sometimes. An example would be going through a light then suddenly looking through the rear view mirror to see if the light was green. The driver doesn’t remember consciously seeing the streetlight. Another similar example is driving a manual, stick drive. Rushing through the motions of the engine’s whine and coupling this with shifting from first gear, to second, and then to third and on to fourth and so on. The sound and the motion of the hand on the stick shift become second nature. Automaticity is brain induced and it is not necessarily mindful, at least in my opinion.

Amorella, I am uncomfortable giving an opinion here. This blog is not about what I think; it is about how the human spirit within my mind (and I assume other human minds) attempts to emotionally reason the whys and wherefores in the limited and greater world of observation. That is how I see it. Human beings are not spiders but we tangle ourselves in existential and intangible webs anyway.

And, these human webs; are they circular too?

I don’t know. Human webs are a mystery to me. Some of them, particularly friendship, appear to stretch beyond the grave. Why do human beings feel the necessity to think that far ahead, unless it has to do with the emotional, the healthful, and financial security for their children, yet they think about their friends’ security also.

Nature appears to build this in all living species does it not?

I don’t know, Amorella. “All” is a pretty big word.

A Stone Ring

Amorella here. I pulled this photograph from orndorff’s last trip to England in two thousand and seven. He thinks I’m going to talk about how he walked around the stone ring following the sun and moon’s path while instinctively taking pictures as he traveled the circle. He also secretly brought back a few pebbles from the path to give to friends. However, there is nothing to think about in that bit of personal theatre. People do all kinds of secret things, some habitually. I see the stone circle as a representation of following a secret path. Look at these bluestones and see what happens after thousands of years. What were the builders of Stonehenge thinking? What is the modern version of the ancient rock ring? Let’s say three thousand years passes from the common year two thousand, that would make it the year five thousand. Humans were human three thousand years ago and chances are they will still be human three thousand years from now.

Generally, parents want their children to have a better life than the one they have lived. Work, comforts, love of friends and family this is a major part of human behavior as I see it. So, orndorff, and anyone else out there reading, what will be the environment of the world that allows the children to lead a better life in being human?

I can’t think that far ahead, Amorella. Three thousand years is a long, long time as far as human beings are concerned.

Think of a thousand years as two hundred pages in a book. It is not so long and it is certainly readable. How do you make the world more secure and smooth running, allowing for the growth of the individual and the various cultures of the world to exist?

In three thousand years other human cultures will have taken over.

Human beings don’t live long enough yet. But, they have made progress over the last one hundred years. Think of a hundred years as one page in a book. Think of everybody in the world and their individual lives for a hundred years on one page of a book. One page is not so long. Sometimes human beings are like the old stones in a circle. I suppose if the rocks had a consciousness they would think they are moving because people are walking around them. You need to grow your mind orndorff, and you use logic and your imagination to do so. I say this because I am your friend. – Amorella.

It is hard to think on such things. The concept makes me feel small and unimportant being crammed up in a page depicting a hundred years.

All this shows is that you need to stretch your mind so you won’t feel small and unimportant. You wonder if you survive after death. If you do, how is it going to be with all the other human beings are there in a kind of timelessness? Talk about a shock. I’ll tell you.

I don’t think there would be a shock one way or the other. Not to me anyway. That is something I have thought out. I’m ready for almost anything. If I’m stuck on an eternal page I won’t be there alone. Not much different than here. We are all stuck home on Earth, the living and the dead. People just learn to live with it. We can adapt to almost anything.

The Bend in the Ohio

Hello, this is Amorella. Nearly fifty miles east of this bend in the Ohio slaves crossed the river to escape slavery by continuing to follow the Underground Railroad from Kentucky up to the Rankin House at Ripley on the Ohio side. Richard shook hands with a neighbor of his grandparents, a Mr. Press Reynolds, who also lived on West Walnut Street in Westerville, Ohio. The story is that when Mr. Reynolds was a boy on the plantation he operated a tobacco press, thus he took Press for his first name. Supposedly it was a Reynolds’ plantation so he took Reynolds as his last name. Richard remembers Mr. Reynolds as a kindly old fellow with a workingman’s hands. What does it mean to have shaken hands with a man who had been born and early raised as a slave orndorff?

It was an important event in my life at the time. I was five, if I remember correctly. Too be honest, I don’t remember my thoughts at the meeting other than my grandfather and I were standing on an old side porch and Mr. Reynolds was standing on the porch with the screen door open. The house paint of the small one story house was blue I think. Almost directly across from the house stood, and still stands, the war memorial in the Otterbein College cemetery. Mr. Reynolds was like one of those granite stones that lined north to south across that cemetery. As I grew up I learned more about slavery as a matter of course. I mainly remember the event because I thought that here was a man who had witnessed the Civil War. That the war had not been that long a time before, since I could shake his hand in the present, which would have been 1947.

I had shaken hands with history. At five I had not thought much about that before, but I had an early understanding of it, because of the cemetery where as a child I toyed with my imagination while walking, running, or sitting among those stones. I understood the last names of some of those people on the stones because I had already met some of their living children or grandchildren. The concept of generations was something inherently important to me, and still is. The human generations is something I want to remember when I am dead and partially buried in that same cemetery. That is, if one consciously survives death. I think it is entirely possible because the human spirit and mind are very powerful and if anything can survive death they just might. If there is nothing after death, that’s all right too. Whatever is the natural inclination of the spirit and mind has something to do with it. Perhaps we inwardly fear death enough that we just survive it. That would be funny. If G---D exists, I feel SheanHe has a sense of humor and it would be funny to wake up dead. The universe is full of little jokes.

Strangely enough, I awoke in the middle of the night with a flash of memory of old Mr. Reynolds’ round face. He had brightness within his tired eyes, short gray curly hair, and a warm, kind smile for a little one like me.