Me and Robert Louis Stevenson

Published June 20, 2016 by Nan Mykel

Image result for Robert Louis Stevenson Rain

I guess I was feeling kind of depressed as a senior in high school, because the main lines I recall from Robert Louis Stevenson on RAIN are not those scattered over Google, but the following:

I am like one who has sat alone

all day on a level plain

with drooping head and trailing arms

in a ceaseless pour of rain.

I discovered that, unlike me, he didn’t stay depressed, but went on to his last verse:

And the purple fringes of the rain
Rose o’er the scarlet west,
And the birds sang in the soddened furze,
And my heart sang in my breast.

SERENDIPITY/SYNCHRONICITY

Published June 19, 2016 by Nan Mykel

See my new page for a background to the terms above, I plan to report S snd/or S’s in posts. Here’s the first one which occurred about 1979 and involves my daughter Lili (sh lili and allan ort for Little Liz). See her photo to the right.

It involves the I Ching, whch I am explaining via Wikipedia–

The I Ching ([î tɕíŋ] or Classic of Changes, is an ancient divination text and the oldest of the Chinese classics. Possessing a history of more than two and a half millennia of commentary and interpretation, the I Ching is an influential text read throughout the world, providing inspiration to the worlds
of religion, psychoanalysis, business, literature, and art. Originally a divination manual in the Western Zhou period (1000–750 BC), over the course of the Warring States period and early imperial period (500–200 BC) it was transformed into a cosmological text with a series of philosophical commentaries known as the “Ten Wings.” After becoming part of the Five Classics in the 2nd century BC, the I Ching was the subject of scholarly commentary and the basis for divination practice for centuries across the Far East, and eventually took on an influential role in Western understanding of Eastern thought.

The I Ching uses a type of divination called cleromancy, which produces apparently random numbers. Four numbers, 6 to 9, are turned into a hexagram, which can then be looked up in the I Ching book, arranged in an order known as the King Wen sequence. The interpretation of the readings found in the I Ching is a matter of centuries of debate, and many commentators have used the book symbolically, often to provide guidance for moral decision making as informed by Taoism and Confucianism. The hexagrams themselves have often acquired cosmological significance and paralleled with many other traditional names for the processes of change such as yin and yang and Wu Xing.

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One day about 1980 my daughter Lili showed some curiosity about the I Ching, whch I had been playing with. I let her toss the coins and we were both surprised when it came out Lili/Lili. Not to be distracted by so strange an occurrence, I had her toss the coins again. Again, they spelled out Lili/Lili, whereupon, somewhat shaken, we put the book away.

NEXT WEEK I’ll record another S/S, this one involving my youngest daughter.

SHARE ANY OF YOURS, VIA A COMMENT

START A NEW PAGE OR KILL ONE?

Published June 18, 2016 by Nan Mykel

Monkeys as Judges of Art, 1889. Retrieved from WikiArt.

openbook

I know 14 pages is way too much, but there’s another I want to have and so this is a time of decision-making. I refuse to give up Incest or Dear Downs, tho people run from it like mad. Relief is pure pleasure, and Life Issues can handle so many important things! There’s really some things I want to share and encourage on “Journal Your Way into Being,” and if I had the time I’d like to share mucho on the Dreams page (I’ve had experience with a public access show on dreams, led a dream group at a mental health center and prison, attended two annual meetings of the International Association for Dreams (at Charlottesville and Santa Fe), attended an ARE weekend workshop on dreams, and taught a creditless course on dreams at O.U. But there’s no way I can tackle the possible meanings of anothers’ dreams. (It’s too embarrassing and personally infringing).

I’m revising “Shattered Boundaries,” my novel and could post it as I go along, but I could just tuck that under ‘MY books.” Let’s see, what is left? Our Shadow Selves–no, I won’t kill that one because sometimes I just use it to think and wonder and try to figure out our human nature. I could let go of Poet/try as far as my poems are concerned, but I have a few (credited) poems I love by others included, and that leaves “Secrets,” which if anyone ever visited would be revealed as a place to store new (to me) discoveries from science, so I can refer back to them. For instance, that the left side of the brain is more positive in outlook than the right? Revealed by experimentation. But I’m 80 and I want to share more, especially about SERENDIPITY–yours and mine, to include not only “coincidences” but more from my life and how it is that an avowed current atheist can feel like she has a guardian angel? (Well, that could be my ISH)..

ANSWER: Start a new page. Thanks, Blogland, for helping me decide.

When I first started my page titled “Relief–Refreshing”…

Published June 17, 2016 by Nan Mykel

…I began the content with the best words I could remember. Tonight I found out more about the man (Jim V. Goure) who gave me those words 35 years ago, and I’m moved to share that information with you, found at http://www.urlight.org/?page_id=14: …

Jim was a graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy and served as a Commander in the Navy shortly after World War II, then was attached to the Atomic Energy Commission in Washington, D.C. as a Senior Executive Officer. During his work with this commission, Jim became aware of the very real threat of a nuclear war. He realized that none of the methods tried had established world peace. For years Jim had been protecting himself and loved ones by placing them in “bubbles of light.” The same could be done for the planet, he said, so he asked friends in Virginia Beach to join with his family using the Effective Prayer [see below].

In 1970, he took early retirement and moved with his wife, Diana, and their eight children to Black Mountain, NC. Here in the nurturing energy of these mountains, Jim and his family began to pray for peace four times every day. In 1976, Jim and Diana formed UNITED RESEARCH, INC., a nonprofit corporation to provide a vehicle for the receipt of individuals to have a place to come and pray and meditate.

I’m not a religious person, but a hopeful one. That year I had attended the Friends Yearly Gathering and had met an older woman with the most startling blue eyes I had ever seen. I mentioned her to Jim when I visited the Light Center , and he spoke her name (Mary Gilbert) and said that she was living with them at the Light Center.

In December 1986, Jim made his transition, but his legacy continues. Diana made her transition on September 11, 2013.

machupicchumid80s

Imagine that you are being filled with a soothing white light that permeates your entire body, then say to yourself the following, as often as seems useful:

I release to the light all my past… I release to the light all my negatives… I release to the light all my fears… I release to the light all my human relationships… I release to the light my future… I release to the light my death… I release to the light my inner self…

I am a LIGHT BEING I RADIATE the light from my light center throughout my being I radiate the light from my light center to EVERYONE I radiate the light from my light center to EVERYTHING I am in a BUBBLE of light and only light can come to me and only light can be here now.

(Optional: Thank you God for everything).

The Door — Ha Ha on Me!

Published June 16, 2016 by Nan Mykel

I could write a short book about my foray into blogland! I was dutifully reading my followings today and saw a bunch of doors labeled photo challenge or some such thing. Having just come from entries on statues, I chose a door and wrote something about it (see below). I had been told that on the “Home Page” of Dverse is a calendar of topics for the month. I couldn’t find anything called home page but did find that tonight was something called “poetics,” without explanation on that page that I could see. I don’t know how–maybe it was talk of us writing on “moods” that alerted me I had goofed again. Will return after the July vacation (f I read correctly). (signed with love, Nan the Nerd).

door

Bi-paneled, it can be opened wide

to let the right ones come inside.

Does not the grandeur of this gate

make you pause, even hesitate?

I want in, but do I dare face

this sacred, special holy place?

A heathen, I would be shut out

even if I should knock and shout.

A great archetype, it stands sedate

against my wisdom come too late.

The Witness of the Waking State

Published June 15, 2016 by Nan Mykel

ish from dropbox

This is a drawing from my journal December 28, 1975, and reprinted in Fallout: A Survivor Talks to Incest Offenders, 2014 p 244. It is from a mental image of my “ISH,” or Inner Self Healer (or Helper), as recognized and discussed by Christine Crawford, 1991, in Dissociation 4 (3), and E. Sue Blume, in Secret Survivors, 1990. Babette Rothschild (2000) refers to it as developing dual awareness. Ganga Stone (1996) appears to be referring to the same concept, although from a slightly religious perspective. She says, The Witness of the Waking State is so constant a presence in our lives that it’s hard to stay aware of it…But it’s very important to learn to catch hold of and identify with it because that changeless Witness is the One who makes it through the transition we call death….NOTE: The detached spectator is the Witness of the Waking State. That Witness is who you actually are….She suggests substituting in our thought self referants as our own name or “he” or “she” instead of I, such as “Nan is having a bad day today.” (Start the Conversation–The Book About Death You were Hoping to Find, Warner Books.)

My journal has often utilized drawings from my imagination in order to express more than words alone can. The journal portion of Fallout contains 28 drawings.

The drawing’s name for instance is “Nan,” the ISH, or the Witness of the Waking State, not “I.” A tad esoteric, eh? But try it; you might like it. P.S. I may add more to this–or should I make it a separate post? I forgot to include Allison, who came up with the ISH name, and Beahrs, who talks of purposefully utilizing healthy dissocation.

Denizens From the Past

Published June 14, 2016 by Nan Mykel

Found on http://pickettsinpoland.blogspot.com/2012/11/last-day-in-wrocaw.html

We are here, never fear, as close

as our breath, manning the pumping

of our heart, actors on the stage

inside, always present, dragging

our mutual lives behind us

until…until…

Written for Dverse 6/14/2016

Be Very Careful – For Dverse Monday

Published June 13, 2016 by Nan Mykel

You can only give from a cup

that is overflowing, so

for Pete’s sake don’t spill it!

If you spilled it we’d both be needy

and thirsty and pitiful. So if you have

a cup that is overflowing, hold onto it

with both hands!

Fathers Day

Published June 13, 2016 by Nan Mykel

We can soon anticipate more new fathers than ever, what with the limitations babysleeping on birth control in different states and religions and varying limits on abortions.