Notes

         Later, on a Monday morning. Last  Thursday, upon leaving, you left your MacBook on top of the lawn mower in the garage as you drove off and up to the North Coast. Once at Kim and Paul’s you were busy most of the time and Paul just sent a snapshot of Owen and you doing what you presently do best on a Sunday morning.

         I have decided that I don’t really have the time to write when visiting. Too much going on or not going on.  I like this surprise photo sent to me this morning because it reminds me of the physical warmth a little body provides. Reminds me of bonding with daughter when she was his age (eight months). Reminds me of all the good in raising a child. – rho

         Say what you will, the photo bothers you because of the camera’s position, i.e. Paul’s. You are sitting next to the fireplace plus how is it that the picture on the far wall and the curtains are not parallel?

         I tried to straighten the photo with the curtain being parallel with the right side of the framing, but obviously reason did not coincide with reality. Ah, hmmm. I see small a personal lesson here.

         And one you should address, orndoff. Post. – Amorella.

        This is fairly easy, Amorella. I get carried away with things and don’t focus on what is important. I made an adjustment in the photo because it didn’t look ‘right’.  Obviously, Paul held the camera at a place between us and the fireplace that I could not have gotten to myself. He is much more agile plus a four degree black belt in Taekwondo. The camera was at a slight tilt when he took the photo making the far wall look out of kilter. What it comes down to is that I thought the questions before I actually took the time to think it out. Silliness on my part. And, yes, it bothers me because I hope this is not the beginning of my falling into some sort of old age mental collapse. I would like to finish the books first and here I am putzing around when I should just listen to your ‘voice’ and let the story actually fly together.

         That is not going to happen, orndorff, because you have set a demand to remain honest and authentic, that is, you have set the demand that the books be written by your basic humanity. In order for this to happen the story has to develop from your notes so that you can understand how you came to use the words used by myself. If from this you want to think of me as a symbol of what is basically human within yourself go ahead and do so.

         Good. I like this. I like the simplification because otherwise I am trying to add things together that don’t add. This relieves the inner mystery as to what you are about. I can deal with it.

         You have dealt with the circumstances around your writing and me so far with perhaps too much imagination and wonder. But then that is who you are also, too much imagination and wonder. All are a part of your authenticity. We will continue along and if you live long enough you will finish the books. If you don’t, then you won’t.

         I can easily (perhaps too easily) live with that.

         This is not a punishment. This is not driven by some kind of secret guilt. You have done nothing in your life that would deserve such a thought, yet you wonder anyway. It is like the story in the book where Blake thinks there is a body buried under the front porch of your grandparents’ house at the corner of Knox and Walnut. That comes from your younger childish imagination and I put it to use.

         I think it comes down to this. For some reason I feel guilty for being alive. I don’t know why other than science cheated me out of a fairly quick death after birth. I didn’t want to be here, yet here I am. I had no conscious control over this. And, I suppose I resent it.

         Sounds like a thought to keep in mind, orndorff. For the sake of perspective. Post. Later, dude. – Amorella.

         Mid-afternoon, and errands to run.

         I am bothered by errands and chores. I seem to use the same word for both. >  An errand is always composed of a short trip while a chore is a routine task.  It is strange I would use one for the other especially in these notes.

         Many of your chores are composed of errands, old man. Let it go. Errands are what you do while Carol does most of the chores.

         Not too good as I am mainly the driver, she still goes along for the chore end of it, especially groceries.

         Further clarification, as if it were needed. – Amorella.

         I am suddenly running into problems loading onto my blogsite. If this is not correctable I suppose I will have to shut this site down and begin another.

         Then you need to back up your material, orndorff. – Amorella.
 

      I have backed up the blog from day one over a year ago. Actually, I was thinking of sending out a CD to each of those who were in the original books. Without them none of this would have been possible.

      List them here boy, with further acknowledgement even though they are listed elsewhere and in the books. The original names will do.

      Here are the “Acknowledgements from Braided Dreams, book one:

Acknowledgments

All of the legendary historical names, theoretical concepts and novel trivia can be found bubbling through the vast Google cauldron, World Book Multimedia Encyclopedia, Version 9. and Encyclopedia Britannica 2005 software. The chess games were played by the free online computer chess program titled Sigma Chess 6.1 or by my ChessMaster 9000 software. All the work was created on my Apple iBook G4.

I thank wife Carol and daughter Kim for their diligence and patience, and I thank my good friends and first readers: Fritz, Bob, Alta and Craig, Jeanne and Jim, Cathy and Tod, Kim and Paul, Gary, Angie, and Laney for their patience and liberality. I also thank two very special first readers, my aunt and uncle, Patricia ‘Pat’ and Warren ‘Ernie’ of Westerville, Ohio for their insight and kindness.  The many revisions to get from first draft to here are through the help of these friends. 

I also thank Robert Pringle for permission to use two of his previously published poems: “Nature Junkie” and “Transplant Waiting Room, Children’s Hospital”.

And, a special thank you and formal bow to my Muse, to m’Lady, and to my inner writer, Amorella, who devised, directed and delivered this manuscript from my unconscious mind through my unconscious fingertips tapping the keyboard.

            This will do. Post. – Amorella. 

            Later, you are at the Kroger’s lot on Tylersville and it has been raining all afternoon, something for which you and others and thankful for as it has not really rained since the early to middle of July in your Ohio County of Warren.

         Reading the ‘Acknowledgements’ today the last paragraph appears rather odd after the other ‘thank you’s’. ‘Unconscious mind through unconscious fingertips’ seems redundant. And, it shows that after all this time (I think it was written in 05 or 06) I still do not have any better way of expressing the description of the writing operation. I’m ready to get on with this next scene, Amorella.

         While working on this scene I discovered a connection between Aeneas and Thales – Thales first made a joke to Kassandra:

           “I wonder how it would have been being alive and have a god make love to me?” questioned Kassandra.

             “I’ll ask Aeneas what his father thinks,” replied Thales jokingly.

             Kassandra suddenly remarked, “Why is Aeneas here in this Place if his mother is Aphrodite?”

            “Now, that is a good question,” expounded Thales as he edged over and gave her a peck on her right cheek. “That is a thinking woman’s question.” I wonder if I should ask him, he thought.

             “I have another good question,” she responded, “At one time his father, Anchises feared for his life thinking Zeus would bolt him for being a mortal and having a relationship with a goddess, but Zeus did not.  Anchises is here among us too.”

             Thales replied, “He is, but he is not one of us ten thousand.”

             “Why is that?” she asked.

             “I don’t know. Mother made up the original list,” stated Thales matter of factly.

             Kassandra responded, “Our greater Mother?”

             “That’s what Mario told me.”

             “Thales, why don’t you ask Aeneas about his father.”

             “He might not know his father is not on our list,” replied Thales.

             “Surely he would,” said Kassandra somewhat sympathetically.

[From Ch.3,sc.4]

***

Scene Seven

         Mid-morning of the eighth day. Thales sat on a chipped out and smoothed white stone bench in front of his private sanctuary, a gift from Aeneas’s father, or so he had been told by the disguised ancient shaman, Takis, who had just delivered it. “Each morning sit on this and glance to the few clouds in the sky  to clear your mind,” had suggested the old deliverer.

         A gift from Aeneas’s father? Strange. I don’t think I ever spoke to him. He smiled, I remember joking with Kassandra about Thales’s father when she wondered about how it would have been to be Thales’s mother and to make love with Zeus. He paused. I did talk with Aeneas the same day. Kassandra told me to ask about his father. He shook his head. I don’t think I did, I spent most of that time in The Mikroikia talking to Aeneas about his mother. I think that is the first time I met him directly.

***

         I really don’t know where this came from, Amorella. I don’t have a memory as such but I went back through the first five chapters and used ‘Find Aeneas’ and stopped in Chapter Three where he comes up for the first time. I cannot believe I could do something with Thales and Takis but that was the lead in to this scene. Thales did meet with Aeneas at the restaurant but he did not mention Aeneas’s father to him. He could have though, and if so, word may have got back to his father, Anchises. I guess this is reasonable enough. Takis was using the situation though, or so it is implied, as is Takis’ power of suggestion to Thales about the chair being able to ‘clear his mind’.  This reminds me of Obi Wan Kenobi. I suppose this is plausible too especially as he is the book’s first shaman.

         Somehow, I assume this will lead Thales to connect his heart rather than his mind to Takis and through Takis, to Ezekiel’s ‘righteous heart’.

         Yes, you see this coming. I’ll have Thales think through the heart business from his perspective of Aeneas and something words that lead to a bonding of their two hearts. He assumes he did say something to Aeneas about his father. So, we will continue with this line of reasoning later, time for the national news coming up. Post for now. – Amorella. 

         After watching “The Event”. I am going to need a good analogy here, one that will fit with Greek logic of the approximate time period. > Something to do with the analogy that the earth floated on water, that the earth was of a particular quality of buoyancy similar to wood but not air. This is a notion that Aristotle later did not agree with.  Also, Thales supposedly said that the soul is cause by movement, that lodestone has a soul because it causes movement to iron. And, Aristotle goes on to say (De An. 405 a20-22) “Some think that the soul pervades the whole universe, whence perhaps came Thales’s view that everything is full of gods.”  However, “when Thales defined reality, he chose an element, not a god. The motive force was not a supernatural being. It was a force within the universe itself.” [From: The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy: Thales]

         I have worked within this framework, orndorff. Tomorrow we will continue with the scene using the logic in the above paragraph. – Amorella.

         That’s fine with me as it uses some of Aristotle’s considerations with the philosopher Thales. Let’s say the heartansoulanmind is the most basic of universal elements of nature. The element need not be human, the basic element re-patterns itself within the evolution of basic matter. That it is as lodestone appeared to Thales plus my stretch here that it is a basic pre-energy of attraction of non-matter, non-physics. The mind aspect is a form of consciousness of self, the heart aspect is the ‘feeling’ of consciousness and the soul is the seemingly ‘immortal substance’ of first consciousness or first awareness of consciousness. Something like this. Well, this is what I am going to bed with. Maybe I can make do with this or something similar, or not. At least this is a first consideration.