January Thaw Redux

January Thaw Redux
and Monkton Chronicles

 a giant wind from warmer places pelted the house and melted snow all day yesterday,
the second thaw of the month.
now going back to freezing for awhile.

on the town front, trying to spread the word:


monkton chronicles 1.31.13

Monkton Town Meeting Concerns

We received a message in the grapevine stating that town fathers are
going to vote the 1 million dollar new town hall bond issue at town
meeting instead of letting everyone who has to work for a living come
in and vote it up or down using Australian ballot. Has anyone else
heard this? Posting here, in Monkton, anywhere. Decisions this big and
Taxes this big must not be decided and raised with such tactics.

who to tell??
mary...I am thankful I have readers all over the world,
who perhaps can send some freedom vibes our way.
notes: in Vermont town meetings there can be voice vote and also polling for some big issues and candidates (all day) by paper ballot.
many people have to work and cannot attend the meeting but vote on paper or absentee.



 

Joe Bonamassa et Beth Hart

Great link...

Same snow, different year

Snow, Monkton, Vermont, stock photo

I know, I know,
We should live in the moment
today

and
take pictures
today
or
tomorrow when tomorrow is today

This time of year, late January
1/2 way through winter
it is easy to get photo-fatigue,
kind of a mental white out.

I think these were from President's day 3 years ago.
We got about 6 inches so far of fluffy snow even in the valley,
Expected to go to 50+ wednesday,
then freezing again. The second January thaw.

Just knowing that, makes it hard to take pictures
when I should be shoveling.


 

Link to movie by Anthony Pepitone. Sean Costello - Double Trouble

Great link to a movie by Anthony Pepitone.
Sean Costello, the masterful blues singer, guitarist.

 

Rerun...Travelogue for the Universe: Ageism

due to skiers and snowboarders still daring to go out of bounds and need rescue taking our precious resources...
thought i would re-run age-ism...


Travelogue for the Universe: Ageism: Ageism. At first glance, It really is a strange looking word. 3 vowels, breaks the normal rules of pronunciation. To say out loud, say i...

Psalm Challenge 90

Psalm Challenge 90

Moses breaks it all down
Doesn't matter if he wrote it
or not
or if it was written after the wandering
or not.
it is a simple and powerful song.

Man's plight to be born, live, work, suffer, die
in 70 to 80 years if you are lucky,
then fade to dust.
Like a field of grass, dying and
next spring a whole new crop,
over and over.

Before all that,
God was there,
watching.
Before the mountains,
God was there,
And everywhere, always, forever and ever.

Since we men and women and those who cannot be sure who they are,
all live finite lives,
accept that you are
human
you will live, toil, suffer and die,
someone will be born in your place.

Live as well as you can
in the moment,
do not dwell on your fate as punishment
or see your mortality as
unfair.

We are given finite days because
we need to value them,
to live in them,
not dreading or dwelling in
yesterday or tomorrow.

My vote is for Moses as the author,

even if someone else channeled his spirit
and message.
The wisdom even in the simple explanation of
the relativity of time.
He compared time to an eternal entity, God,
to the perception by a mortal human.
this demanded a special mind.

Lastly I offer a link to Rick Danko singing playing and writing
When you Awake,
and the simple wisdoms therein

Summer Memories

 

It was a fine Summer day.
This week, dipping way below zero degrees f
Nice to have images of beautiful summer days
 

The Sound of Saturn: The Winds of Titan, from the Huygens Probe

Did you ever hear the winds of Titan?
Did you know that someone did?

Was looking for Friday Music,
Listening to Four Strong Winds by a few of the many who recorded that one.
Then found a fascinating clip of the winds on a moon of Saturn, Titan, one moon I recognize.
Remember The Sirens of Titan?
I had to think of Kurt Vonnegut as soon as I heard
The Winds of Titan.

So after I witnessed the winds of Titan,
back to 4 Strong Winds...

This version of Four Strong Winds is from the Farm Aid website...
tgif

 

Mourning The Last Resort

We watched the last episode last night of
The Last Resort,
a well done, well acted, well written series.
It might be hard to imagine that the story could have gone on forever
like Gilligan's Island.
The ending left me wanting more,
and mourning the mad or not so mad Captain,
Early on, I immediately believed in him, and
later had twinges of doubt from time to time.
There is violence, action, intrigue, spies, government conspiracy,
love, death, loyalty, betrayal, redemption.
Why must it end?


 

Bruce Springsteen - Chimes Of Freedom

Link to a great song as current today as in 1988
To the Chimes of Freedom

View on the morning commute

View on the morning commute

Lately, spectacular clouds like these
Now in the deep freeze

Interview with a Clone. Chapter 21

Interview with a Clone,

Chapter 21

By Mary E. Gerdt

All rights reserved

2012-2013

Chapter 21

Last Call

Gigi turned on the transmitter. She checked the metrics, the location of Earth satellites, and calibrated the tuners for the best reception. She did a few sound checks, listening with headphones she had first used in flight training. She smiled as she had a pleasant thought, then scribbled on the media box, “Last Call.”

When the rescue ship comes, Gigi wants badly to stay, to stay behind, to become a lone hermit woman, all alone on a Martian island. Just this moment, writing the words, she had a tinge of homesickness for Earth. She checked her own forehead. No fever. Her self Pulse check, was steady. Some other forces or energy seemed to be at play. Maybe it was Dawn’s illness, and Tommy’s impending anger at Gigi. It seemed to be more, and yet Gigi just could not know.

Gigi saw no way out of going back with the rescue ship.

She packed her bags, pretty simple for military personnel like her. Clothes, blanket, mess kit, pillow, personal bag. For souvenirs, 2 Mars rocks were all she wanted to carry. They were allowed up to 5 Earth kilogram equivalents. The little Martian Rubies weighed a few kg each. She was just under 5.

On Earth, Alice prepared to speak on the last radio show before the Mars rescue was scheduled. She already decided there would be no disclosure over the air. Whatever her mother told her posthumously was safe with Alice and Georgia. They swore secrecy except to each other, let the world think there are clones. They needed time to assess how the truth will come out if it is to come out.



“Hello Alice…” Gigi began, upbeat, like she was singing.

“Hello Gigi…” Applause on Mars…They really love “their” Alice Karma,

famous Clone., voice of hope in the desert wilderness.

Alice began by simply reciting what she had for dinner and then she described a movie that was showing.

Just another ho hum day on Earth…

Alice talked about pretty much everything and nothing, just normal everyday stuff. On Mars, the colonists were entranced, hoping themselves that they could get back to Earth, back to the now appreciated humdrum.

MLK Day

Martin Luther King Day

A good way to start the day is to listen to MLK's I Have a Dream speech.
No matter what color or gender you are,
He talked about you
and me.

We, each of us, has a talent, a gift, a purpose.
What if we all start using our talents as they were designed?

The wind has been blowing with a bitter force.
First southern air, feeling cold,
Then the arctic blast from the north.

The bitter cold settling in for a few days.
A good day to contemplate the world as we know it
in the year 2013.


Thought I would post an archival photo looking up to locust trees.

 

 

Psalm Challenge 89

 

psalm challenge #89

 

each week, i have been studying the next psalm,

googling god so to speak

hoping to channel some of what makes the foundations

of humanity

you know, the nice side,

hopefully the nice ones.

 

We are all flawed by design however

even god

being all inclusive

take the bad with the good

 

last night,

news of dad taking ill,

i am silently crushed and not surprised

and

 

utterly powerless

as is he

 

He carried the dna that makes half of me

and i feel it about half the time

 

so events started colliding with my

psalm challenge post-planning.

Research yielded David, Immanuel, the Covenant,

the Promise God made

to sons of David
 

he said, hang in there, i will be there for you

 

This Psalm song was sung by Ethan,

(also the name of a local vt rebel Hero)

 

 

I woke up and checked out the news.

janis joplin is 70 today

the first song that came to mind

fit so well with the sentiments of this psalm

love and pain

faith and redemption

 

 

 

 

for more psalm challenge posts
Daily Athens

Janis Joplin - Maybe

Happy Birthday, Janis,

Early Memories

Early Memories
are fuzzy and 2 dimensional sometimes,
like time-lapse photography,
frame by frame,
sometimes just a glimpse
or a sniff, touch, sensation.

Thinking about my earliest memories,
I was 5 years old. Dad delivered mail.
I knew that much.
I also knew that the mailbox by the police station
was where Mom would go or send one of us to
put the mail in chute of the the big metal box.

One day I carefully gathered leaves and
who knows what and I made an envelope and glued it.
Mary, I wrote in crayon on the front.
I took it up to the corner mailbox and slipped it in.

Later that day, Dad's low voice, the one that says
You are in trouble, mary
"Mary...." He said simply.
He had the envelope in hand.
His head tipped a little,
go ahead mary, confess
(my plans foiled, it was supposed to come in our mailbox)
I was most shocked that he suspected Me!
How did he know??

We got through that day and he did not really have to punish me more.
Thinking fondly of him as I write this and
wish him the best
always.



 

I Belong To Me: The 'cool blue halo' Story (Official Trailer)

Music next on my to order list....

Happy Friday...

 

Skipping Wednesday

Skipping Wednesday,
Nothing to say,
Snow, Snow, Snow,
Snowing all day.

Skipping Wednesday,
Driving on ice was a b*tch,
Michelins and Big Red
Kept me out of the ditch.

A woman stood, phone in hand
in the middle of the road.
She waved me down
emphatically,
slow down, she motioned,
as she coordinated the call.
It was icy there, between the lake and the mountain.

Looking to my right,
I saw now,
what the matter was.
Three cars, scattered randomly,
My eyes scanned for injuries.

I watched the people from the accident mill around,
looking steady and fine.
The cars looked bashed up,
replaceable, tow able, paint able.

The woman in charge looked at me scanning,
Perceptible.
She said,
No one is hurt.

I turned on down the hill,
into the icy mess.
Going slower in Big Red.

Now thinking, bet those poor people,
wishing they were not stuck there,
would just as soon have
skipped Wednesday, too.

 

A few good tv shows

TV on web
CBS....NCIS and NCIS-LA and Vegas
ABC...The Last Resort

The Last Resort is a great show I vote to keep running. In fact, all 4 shows here are great.

Live blogging during NCIS-LA.
Always entertaining.
signing off
mg

Energy

~

Energy

 

All we were was energy,

a wave,

a

flash in the pan.

 

They said

Go There,

Fight,

 we did.

 

Their energy

---------

flat,

broken.

 

Our energy

~~~~~~~~~

waves

of essence.

 

Energy

has reflectance,

deceptively looking like material objects,

sometimes looking like a rainbow.

 

Neither created

nor destroyed,

only

converted

from one form to

another.

 

Even as I posted this,

Flat out tired from

lack of energy,

running down for the day,

last night I thought,

Why not go ahead and try to say

what I have been trying so hard

to find the words to describe?

 

 

 

Edgar Cayce on the Akashic Records

A link to a great understandable lesson about Edgar Cayce
and the Akashic records, the books of our lives.

Prayer Of The Children - Three Dog Night

Ann and the Angels posted a link to this moving tribute to the victins at Sandy Hook.
Beautiful and so so sad.

Psalm Challenge 88

“Thou hast laid me in the lowest pit, in darkness, in the deeps.”

The lonely soul,
departing a painful life,
clinging, clinging to the material world.
Wallowing in the sadness of a lifetime of turmoil and pain.
Finding faith elusive
in the cold heartless dark.
Failing to see the light,
just over there,
abundant
forgiving and pure.
Pausing in the extreme shame, sadness, regret
wondering if their Maker is waiting to rescue
testing the faith
of the lonely soul.



for more psalm challenge: visit Daily Athens

$tatus of the union

monkton chronicles 1.11.13

2013 $tatus of the union

 Gas prices in VT have not budged

 taxes right up there

 taxes right out of boundaries of sustainability

food prices steadily advancing

$omething has to give...or someone, anyone

 and how will we advance through the golden years?

The open meeting law still relies on the citizen to hire

 a lawyer and get all nasty.

Just so readers worldwide & beyond? 

wonder how free free is, how open open is,

they are not open or free without ethical upright primates

 obeying an ethical code, an underlying rulebook,

a framework supporting equal treatment for all.

January thaw here early

 The snow melting, backroads are messy, ice and ruts.

Will go back into cold spell soon enough.

Wishing for reform of Vermont Property Taxes

 and wisely not holding my precious breath.

Girly Girl, our new old cat, is happily curled up on my lap.

Tommy wishes she would go away

 Watching the territorial cats, scrapping over nothing,

at least nothing apparent to me, I see the human in their feline ways.

Friday Musik Link

Great link to
 Janis Joplin on  The Tom Jones Show
1969
 tgiff

Summer Memory

Rose

Some years

Some years

Lake Champlain freezes over completely.

Tommy Tuesday

Tommy

... ...Blogging Forward . Pro mobility Not just another walker er rollator. ... wobbly teetering blogging: Have all terrain rollator, in a word: ... 'bloody ...

Reposting from friend

... .... ... wobbly teetering blogging: Have all terrain rollator, in a word: ... 'bloody ...: And now for the lowdown on all things all-terrain with the Trionic Veloped from guess poster, KB ^:  ... oops, that's two words I thin...

Eric Clapton Plays with Joe Bonamassa LIVE on Joe's Euro Tour

A great tune to start the week with
To Monday morning
Link to JB TV

Link to Shadows on the Snow - Original Film and Soundtrack (Lesley and Richard, ...

Link to A Wonderful film on YT.

Psalm Challenge 87

His Foundation is in the Holy Mountains

king james version


At first study, I was going to post about how separation of church and state is a myth like separation of a human and their mind.
These Adironadacks, above, might be strewn with windmills of folly were it not for the conservationists, seeing Zion in this image.
And my image of mountains always there,
my Mother telling me stories of mountains when I was a child.
She visited her Aunt in Tucson and came back and said the mountains were so grand there. Every morning she woke up and they were there.

And my Mom’s voice this morning saying in my mind
I hope you are taking notes
and the photo snapped this morning
calling to me


And this song is in my head all day
 

For more interpretations of the Psalm songs:
the host
Daily Athens Psalm Challenge/

 

Whole Earth Thinking

Interconnectedness 

Perusing my emails

 on autopilot, I 

happened upon the 40th anniversary

of the Noetic society, 

the group astronaut Edgar Mitchell started.

I listened to an interview with
Jean Houston
Jeanhouston.com

She talked about interconnectedness.

The Mother Earth as one.

How else can you see it

 Once you do?

Did you ever think there would only

 be 12 men to go to the moon.

I had the honor of shaking the hand of one of the 12.

The moon missions were 40 years ago?

Once again, expectations foiled.

I expected space travel to grow more.

Now thinking about journeys within,

The universe of the mind.

My inner potential.

Hoping I can help spread the word.

We are one, one world, one universe,

Joined by an invisible bond,

magnetic cohesion

 interconnectedness.

Richard Barone - I Belong To Me - 'cool blue halo' 25th Anniversary Conc...

Great link to end the week...
 

Notice?

Notice?

did you see?

the world is different,

to you and me.

You see your way,
your path so clear.

I cannot see your point
 from over here.

We both want what is best
 for number one first,
biology made us so.


If we make our loved ones next,
that's common sense,
you know.

So who do you place next in line
 for your loyalty
and
your dough?


In politics
 as in life
as you follow
 the votes
 you may discover loyalties,
alliances, friendships, debts
 and payback.

Did you ever notice?

(sorry, that last line didn't rhyme...mg)

1-2-13

 

1-2-13

It will be hard to write 13 as the year briefly,

like it is every year.

This year harder

 for those with phobia about 13

Posting an archival photo

 of a clear winter sky.

Keep warm!

Richard Barone - Love Is A Wind That Screams (feat. Garth Hudson) - Offi...

Beautiful way to start the New year...
Link to great musik!

New Year' s Day

New Year's Day

Here we go,
Over the cliff, you know,
20-13 is the year,
Don' t look below,
You might get dizzy
 with no dough.

New Year's Day in the US
starts after half the rest of the world,
We begin the year with a day off,
watch football, eat nachos w/ beer.

If my poems lack luster
 or fail to rhyme properly,
  blaming on fatigue
   and sugar and our new old cat, Girly