Notes

          Late morning. Today you were up at mid-morning after a night of in bed and in the chair and in bed. Up early, fed the cat. You have a new pattern of morning news gathering. First, the Cincinnati Enquirer which has taken on the attributes of a weekly local paper everyday but Sunday when it fills out to the size of the old Thursday daily. Then to the iPad apps: U.S.A. Today, New York Times Editor’s Choice, BBC News, Slate, and Flipboard with a focus on science news of any kind as well as the offbeat and otherwise personal interest. Today’s use of the apps provides most of the news in tomorrow’s Enquirer delivered edition. Newsweek, Time, Harpers and Discover make up the magazines worth reading or at least skimming for interesting articles. Nightly national news provided by NBC mostly because they use feeds from CNBC and MSNBC for a more specific detailed focus on the national and world economy. The Nation was more fun to read when Bush was President and you will not re-subscribe.

         Obviously this was on my mind. I like the news apps on iPad. I am no longer as interested in the hands on physical newspaper as I have been since the days when I delivered the Columbus Citizen and then the Columbus Citizen-Journal. I was thinking about that this morning because I have new FB friends who are a part of the Westerville High School website and a friend of a friend I delivered a paper for (her family) in Minerva Park back in the fifties. Sharon O. graduated in 1958. It was funny to see her name after all these years. She was probably a pre-teen when I delivered her paper. Facebook is just amazing that way. Since the reunion in June I have ‘confirm friend’ or ‘friended’ maybe ten high school classmates. Some go clear back to kindergarten. It is just awesome to see all those names. Each one kicks in a memory or two or more that I haven’t thought of in years. It traces back to who I am.  

         For instance, in today's Times under “Your Brain On Computers” – ‘Outdoors and Out of Reach’ – by Matt Richel – is talking about the brain: “Attention is the grail,” Mr. Strayer says. “Everything that you are conscious of, everything you let in, everything you remember and you forget depends on it [consciousness].” The focus of the article was on taking a vacation and letting go of the high tech communication devises. To me, that is silly. Google is a portable library. What would I do without it? It also corrects my memory which never was very good. Too haphazard, but put in a word or two and a more correct version comes up. One has to pay attention, and one has to be conscious to pay attention.

         I disagree, orndorff. Observations are captured unconsciously also. Intuition is their usual pathway to consciousness. You know this.

         Yes. I remember articles on defense for college girls walking alone across campus at night and experts telling them to listen to their intuitions, that there are clues or even vibes that tell a person that normal conditions may not be quite ordinary. I had forgotten about that. Too much generalizing on my part. Thank you, Amorella.

         It is after noon and eventually you and Carol are heading out for a Subway styled picnic as it is cooler today. Post for now. – Amorella.

The word of the day is a good one fits right in with my present thoughts in preparation for scene 4.

The Word of the Day for August 16 is:

Liminal:  adjective

1 : of or relating to a sensory threshold

2 : barely perceptible

3 : of, relating to, or being an intermediate state, phase, or condition :

in-between, transitional

Example sentence:

"The Texas/Mexico border region is a liminal zone where one culture blends into

another." (Dan Goddard, San Antonio Express News, November 16, 2005)

Did you know?

The noun "limen" refers to the point at which a physiological or psychological

effect begins to be produced, and "liminal" is the adjective used to describe

things associated with that point, or threshold, as it is also called. Likewise,

the closely related word "subliminal" means "below a threshold"; it can describe

something inadequate to produce a sensation or something operating below a

threshold of consciousness. Because the sensory threshold is a transitional

point where sensations are just beginning to be perceptible, "liminal" acquired

two extended meanings. It can mean "barely perceptible" and is now often used to mean "transitional" or "intermediate," as in "the liminal zone between sleep and wakefulness."

 **

            The subliminal and liminal will be used as a part of Ezekiel’s death experience as will the unconscious. The Greeks thought of Sleep and Death as twins of a sort. So you might kick in some background reminders, orndorff. Later, dude.

         Below from Wikipedia:

**

Hypnos (sleep) was the personification of sleep; . . . His twin was Thanatos (death); their mother was the primordial goddess Nyx (night). His palace was a dark cave where the sun never shines. At the entrance were a number of poppies and other hypnogogic plants.

Hypnos's three sons or brothers represented things that occur in dreams (the Oneiroi). Morpheus, Phobetor and Phantasos appear in the dreams of kings. According to one story, Hypnos lived in a cave underneath a Greek island; through this cave flowed Lethe, the river of forgetfulness. Endymion, sentenced by Zeus to eternal sleep, received the power to sleep with his eyes open from Hypnos in order to constantly watch his beloved Selene. But according to the poet Licymnius of Chios, Hypnos, in awe of Endymion's beauty, causes him to sleep with his eyes open, so he can fully admire his face.

In art, Hypnos was portrayed as a naked youthful man, sometimes with a beard, and wings attached to his head. He is sometimes shown as a man asleep on a bed of feathers with black curtains about him. Morpheus is his chief minister and prevents noises from waking him. In Sparta, the image of Hypnos was always put near that of death. – From Wikipedia

**

            I like the photo of  John Williams Waterhouse’s painting “Sleep and His Half Brother Death”  [Wikimedia Commons] Good mood setter.

         I can do something with this after you go to lunch. Post. – Amorella. 

        You and Carol are relaxing at the nearby ‘Cabin on the Hill’ park in West Chester. Jean N. and Sandy H. sent you a ‘Free Hugs’ from YouTube forward from Ken C. and you were gratified to see one of the better qualities of the species at work.

         I didn’t think this was worth mentioning Amorella. It is pleasant enough though seeing people reach out to strangers, although I would have resisted a hug mainly because I would figure she or he was a pickpocket as the least of the abhorrent criminals that freshly come to mind. For adults and children of good sense this is not a trusting world. No reason for it to be as far as I can tell. I suppose we could, if so inclined, go to meet death with these same self-surviving assumptions. First, it seems to me, would be the matter of acceptance of death. That would be denial first, a trick of mind. ‘I am still here so how can I be dead?’ ‘Uh, where is here?’

         If I remember right this comes up in book one, where the Soki, who is really Amorella, doesn’t know how sheorhe got from There to Here. In your (Amorella’s) adjustment you still like to write numbers out rather than use the shortened symbols such as 5 or 7. It seems to me that old Ezekiel has a lot of adjustment ahead of him. You don’t like exact times either, like 8:00 o’clock. You would rather use ‘early morning’ or ‘mid-morning’. The first thing Ezekiel will probably miss is the sun. Pleasantly fair blue skies with a puff or two of white fluffy clouds drifting over may not be his cup of tea. What about all those people who love storms? Not one in sight in Elysium. These are the thoughts I am running up against Amorella. Diversions from actually sitting down and writing the scene, or rather, having you write it.

         You are always welcome to disagree, boy.

        

         I rarely have reason to do so after the fact. Just my grumpy self, I think, to disagree with whatever I want to disagree with. Another human trait along with allowing free hugs. If one has consciousness after death and then one consciously disagrees, then I assume someone is in for a rough time of it.

         That’s what the private home is for, an outer shell or skin really, to wall one up into, cocoon-like until these personal matters are dealt with. Not much different than one’s meat and juicy  potatoes, guts, as it were, hidden by the outer skin during life.  We will end the scene with Ezekiel deciding it is time to go into his  privacy chamber to sort out this world of the living with the next. It doesn’t take him too long actually, compared to the average which may, ironically, take about the same length as life did, at least that is how it is in these books. A rough estimate of time length to be sure, fortunately though, time, like self-identity, stays relative. – Amorella.

         Ah, gallows humor, Amorella. So, we are stuck in our species.

         Where else would you want to be stuck?

         It sounds like compromises must be made.

         You want reality on this side and the other, you’ve got it. It just has to be bound. After all, some people continually want to bound the gods as they bind themselves. A turn in humor seems just. –  Don’t it, boy? - Amorella.

          In the warmth of a tree shaded parking place in Kroger’s my fingers are wont to freeze. > Fortunately, Carol came out with the groceries, and home we went. I napped. But I am done for the day. Intuition tells me this is all within myself, something psychologically set for consistencies' sake to get through these six books with Amorella always staying within her character so the books are consistent.  That’s how I see it at present. – rho        

         Post, orndorff. Tomorrow perhaps we will get to this scene and be done with it. – Amorella.