Delectables...

This afternoon... 

I make my way down the stairs and into the kitchen. 

I walk out the kitchen storm door and onto our almost brand-new, stick-built, screened-in back porch.

I walk out the wood-framed screen door and onto our almost brand-new, stick-built deck. 

"Hi Hiram," I softly say as I greet the great scarlet oak which provides us much-needed shade, companionship, and a home for wildlife. 

He wears a face, high up on his bark trunk. 

Scars left form enduring previous years of maturing.

I've often wondered if the scars are a result of storms in times before we knew Hiram and before this house was built. It was built in the '60s, a time before all vegetation was razed to build human dwellings. One thing I love about our neighborhood is the number of trees. Of course, with all these trees around and in between the manmade structures, comes risks. 

Our arborist estimates Hiram to be 100 to 120 years old.  

Hiram has a pupil in his right eye, part of the face.

His mouth is neither frowning nor smiling.

It feels like he is watching over our house, our home. 

I named him Hiram years ago. 

I turn left and walk down the two short steps to the lower part of the deck and over to the almost brand-new, built-in, wooden bench sized just for me. 

When in process of building the bench, the builder had me come outside to measure the height for the bench seat. 

It's perfect. I'm only 4'11". I used to be 5'2". I lost three inches within 4 years, probably a side effect of long-term, high-dose pharmaceutical steroids. The shrinkage caused kyphosis in my thoracic spine area. Think Quasimodo, but lower down on the spine. 

The big daystar on its afternoon descent shines directly on the bench. 

One reason I had the bench built, sun therapy. 

I sit down and lean back.  

I rest my head on the small rail-shelf which tops the back of the bench. 

Again, a perfect fit on which to rest my neck and head.

I close my eyes and see the red of the sun beneath my eyelids. 

I imagine the rays bringing healing to my eyes. 

Will that happen? I dunno. 

But it feels comforting, warm, nurturing, and the right thing to do at this moment. 

Within a couple minutes white fluffy clouds obscure the sun. 

The red light fades away. 

I open my eyelids. 

I witness the clouds slowly moving and the leaves of the trees dancing in the breeze. 

The breeze also feels comforting in the 90-degree heat of the air beyond me.

Air is not empty. 

If we had eyes that could detect all the information flowing through the airwaves -- the DNA, the germs, the gases, the cellular and satellite communications, and whatever else floats in the Invisible to our-naked eyes -- I imagine it would look very busy. 

It's a good thing we can't see all that. 

I wonder if Hiram can.

After maybe 5 minutes I walk back indoors. 

I want a snack. 

Chips? Saltines? Orange slices? Ice cream? 

Oooo, I know. I'll eat some crickets! 

I retrieve a one-ounce bag of Cricket Caramel Crunch made by 3 Cricketeers out of Minnesota. 

Each bag contains three crickets, along with popcorn and peanuts with a caramel coating. 

Thank you crickets. 

In 2007 I penned a poem entitled The Cricket...

A cricket sat upon

My golden glasses' rim

He looked me in the eye

And I looked back at him

His eyes were big and round

One eyelid blinked a wink

I gazed at him and asked

"What is it that you think?"

He bobbed his head, stroked his wings

Playing a solemn tune

Then he answered wisely

Beneath the silver moon

"My life it may be short

Yet I work day and night

My melodies I play

With great purpose and delight

For those in wood and town

The two-legged creatures great

Reminding them that if I cease

They'll know it is too late."

He hopped right off my glasses

And sauntered to the trees

At night now when I hear him

I bow upon my knees

~*~*~

Crickets: The Musicians of the Insect World: Fun facts from Nemo TV

~*~*~

The Cricket Song by Tilly and Bo

 

Pick Two

The piece below was compiled for a writing group in which I participate.

I feel some vulnerability in sharing it here on toss & ripple.

Why do I even want to share it?

Why do I share anything on my blog? (A question I've often asked myself.)

Well, this time, I'm sharing it because of the responses I received after reading it out loud in the writers' gathering... 

~*~~*~

[5/27/2025: WriteTime]

I have written since our last gathering.

But, not for public consumption. 

I've only journaled. 

I'm so tired...

Should I just transcribe a journal entry or two and read that?

Okay, I'll pick two...

Journal entry 5/20/27, late night:

I am safe.

Circumstances have not changed, factually.

But my perspective has.

The circumstances do not feel real; it kind of feels like I am making all this up.

But my journal entries from November 2000 are factual truth showing otherwise.

Well then, I must be making a mountain out of a molehill.

But the long essay about the effects [of this certain circumstance] validates my own experience. 

A half-hour ago I felt-thought, "My life is like a comic book." 

What does that mean?

It means my life does not feel real.

So, in psychology, that feeling is called dissociation. 

And that is okay and actually a normal response.

Wow. That may be the most normal thing I do.

Spiritually, it is taking a step back and viewing the circumstance from outside my body...

I'm sleepy now... 

Journal entry 5/26/25, late night:

At this moment my heart feels anxiety.

That is not unusual; I swim in uncertainty.

Do not we all? Or am I projecting?

Perhaps most humans feel certain.

What does "certain" mean?

"Sure."

Hmm. When I think of something being "sure," the context is an event in the past. 

I see a picture. 

Like if I wonder if I turned off the stove, if I'm sure, I would see a picture in my mind's eyes in my brain which is different from my soul's eye which is in my heart.

My soul's eye -- some would call it a fantasy. 

But isn't that what the future is? A fantasy?

Oh, where was I?

Ah! Back to the word "certain."

Is the word "absolute" a synonym for "certain?"

Ab sol ute.

I wonder if that comes from words that mean "without a doubt."

Do I believe anything is absolute? 

That's a hard question.

I think of absolute as something that cannot be changed.

The only thing I can think of is the past; the past cannot be changed.

Or is there some other plane where the past can be changed? 

And how would the one living it even know?

Oh Carol, you started this stream writing that you feel anxiety.

How about now?

Well, I've journaled and lived into the future which just now became the past.

One thing is for certain.

There are at least three time zones:

Past. Present. Future.

[End journal entries.]

Today, 5/27/25, about 30 minutes after transcribing these entries for tonight:

It dawned on me that the first entry is the first thing I journaled after the 5/20/25 WriteTime. 

The last entry is the last journal entry before the 5/27/25 WriteTime.

Somehow, that seems significant...

This past week felt like three...

~*~~*~

WriteTime is a gathering of folks who write, read, listen, comment...

Link: WRITETIME

~*~~*~

John Prine with Living in the Future...

Corridors and Window...

 [4/29/25 WriteTime]

In the past 5 months, I guess...

Maybe it's been longer... 

I find myself reviewing my life in a hub of my memory...

Corridors from where images bubble up... 

Many are distinctively clear...

I think all are in color... 

Once these images bubble up, it's not unusual for me to gain an insight that either I haven't had before, or I can't remember if I had it, or the insight seems to have been there along, but I had to wait for it to come out of hiding and not immediately push the insight away because of training to not allow certain feelings of the past. And if they did come up, I was to declare them "null and void." That is so unhealthy...

But that's what indoctrination can do. 

It can replace, shield, correct, kill choice. 

Some may say, "Indoctrination doesn't kill choice; it limits choice." 

Technically, that may be true. 

But experientially, I beg to differ. 

I've' described my experience with indoctrination as a soul suicide.

Back to the memory corridors...

Counting backward in time, from when I first began training as Way Corps in 1978 at 19 years old...

There was The Way Corps and Word Over the World Ambassador, both from The Way International, an organization to which I stayed loyal for 28 years. Looking back, it's like, in part, I got stuck in an adolescent mindset.

Right before The Way, there was The Pentecostal and Charismatic Movements. 

Then, continuing backwards in time, The Aquarian Gospel of Jesus the Christ. 

Simultaneously with The Aquarian Gospel, there was Ram Dass with Be Here Now, and there was Transcendental Meditation (TM), Round 2.

Before that, The Southern Baptist Church which came after Transcendental Meditation, Round 1.

Before TM there were a multitude (I'm not exaggerating) of psychedelic trips, including a round with Jimson seed at 15 years old while I was strapped to a bed in ICU living in a world of horrific hallucinations for three full days and nights with no sleep. 

What led me to TM at 16 years old was the effect of too many psychedelic trips. Other than the Jimson nightmare, the trips were magical. I and my fellow trippers could feel the oneness of all things, at first.  

Around 10 months into the oneness, a shift happened. 

I turned inward, into a deep dark bottomless hole. 

Alone, paranoid, sitting on my bed with my head in my hands, rocking forward and backward, I thought I was going insane. 

I probably was. 

My saving thought was, "If I were insane, I wouldn't know it." 

Eight words. 

That same day, I turned to TM to heal my brain; it helped. 

Before the drugs there were boys and cheerleading.

Before boys there were horses and ponies and the neighborhood kids. 

There must have been 25 of us neighborhood kids... 

When I think back on those days, before my interest in boys at 13 years old, I feel a sense of freedom. 

I identify this feeling of freedom from around 5 years to 13 years old. 

Surely this feeling extends beyond that; my experiences would indicate so. 

But right now, I only feel it during that window of eight years... 

All in the context of my childhood neighborhood... 

Girls rode the horses and ponies; boys rode the minibikes which would sometimes scare the horses. 

One day, when I was 10 years old, I was breaking in a Welsh pony named Mary Jane. (I now prefer the term "gentling" as opposed to "breaking in.")  A minibike revved up behind her. She bolted in fear into some woods and threw me off into a tree and kept running. I broke my arm, and my face got all scratched up. They found Mary Jane downtown in the small city, more like a town, where I lived. Despite the incident, I got back on ponies and rode almost every day until I was around 12 when I began riding less and less.

We had freedom to roam; we camped outside, usually in nearby woods. 

Sometimes I'd camp out alone in our yard. 

I'd stargaze praying to see UFOs; surely, we aren't alone. 

I wanted to meet aliens; I thought they could bring oneness to the world. 

I'd read Chariots of the Gods when I was around 10 years old.

I wanted to believe. 

~*~~*~

WriteTime is a gathering of folks who write, read, listen, share...

Link: WRITETIME

~*~~*~