anamnesis

Mew left today. Headed to Washington for new adventures. We hugged the dickens out of him and watched with teary eyes as the brown caddie made the same left turn it had made for a couple of years now going back to Fort Collins; this time the turn would take Mew far away from us. Away from the lazy weekends we'd spend talking, laughing, or just reading together on the couch; the simple enjoyment of his thoughtful company. The day before, Sonic came down for dinner and slipped Mew an envelope, in secret, to open on the road. It had a note and money for his brother; money that was probably Sonic's groceries for a week. Bright-eyes and I barely made it back into the house before we were in each other's arms with tears of sadness, joy and confusion; unexpected, welling up from someplace deep. A place I feel blessed to have touched in this lifetime. So proud of these charges, so inadequate to my task. How simple and superficial the ways of the mind and how fathomless and complex

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A nice list from Texas Women's University. Some of my favorites: Turn "needs" into preferences. Our basic physical needs translate into food, water, and keeping warm. Everything else is a preference. Don't get attached to preferences. Writing your thoughts and feelings down (in a journal, or on paper to be thrown away) can help you clarify things and can give you a renewed perspective. (The one Ger-beans and I use for this is The Journal , which I highly recommend.) Every day, do something you really enjoy. Focus on understanding rather than on being understood; on loving rather than on being loved. Do one thing at a time. When you are with someone, be with that person and with no one or nothing else. When you are busy with a project, concentrate on doing that project and forget about everything else you have to do. Have a forgiving view of events and people. Accept the fact that we live in an imperfect world. Have an optimistic view of the world.

Less than 5 minutes; put together by a cultural anthropologist and builds to some very interesting insights. Link

Pet topic. Skip if you're bored already with these critiques of the established world-view; if you're still here, prepare to be surprised. Pharmaceutical revenues outstrip petroleum revenues by about 50 billion dollars annually. Which means our culture spends more on pills than it does on gasoline and heating. Now, I'd like to think this is because of technical advances in the treatment of conditions for people like Marbella and Ms. Beans. But the real cash cows of the business are the antidepressants. Making people happy is big bucks. Equating dissatisfaction with illness and ascribing it to an "imbalance" in brain chemistry is brilliant marketing; even though the basis of this claim has not been scientifically validated and is more controversial in the field of neurobiology than is popularly recognized. This is not to say that depression doesn't exist or that it can't be a dehabilitating condition; just that the "treatment" proposed is suspect.

One of my favorite YouTubers talks to her mom about peepholes. (Note, if it's not obvious, that she's playing all the characters herself, lol.)

The Challenge Try to find some images of a food or drink product that you loved as a kid and that they don't make anymore. My favorite cereal growing up was Quisp and Quake. I liked Quisp better, but either would do. And, of course, there was the mythical drink, found only in the old style soda dispensers that you had to slide the bottle over to a latch to pull out; located only on the back roads of OK (as far as I knew):

Inspired by Tao's Bird Post , yet too lazy to chase down those flighty creatures on my own; I stole one of Bright Eye's shots of a Ferruginous Hawk she caught on one of her walkabouts.

My little Son, who look'd from thoughtful eyes And moved and spoke in quiet grown-up wise, Having my law the seventh time disobey'd, I struck him, and dismiss'd With hard words and unkiss'd, —His Mother, who was patient, being dead. Then, fearing lest his grief should hinder sleep, I visited his bed, But found him slumbering deep, With darken'd eyelids, and their lashes yet From his late sobbing wet. And I, with moan, Kissing away his tears, left others of my own; For, on a table drawn beside his head, He had put, within his reach, A box of counters and a red-vein'd stone, A piece of glass abraded by the beach, And six or seven shells, A bottle with bluebells, And two French copper coins, ranged there with careful art, To comfort his sad heart. So when that night I pray'd To God, I wept, and said: Ah, when at last we lie with trancèd breath, Not vexing Thee in death, And Thou rememberest of what t

And it came to Boulder!

Think about the consequences! This seems to be a constant theme that's drilled into most of us through-out our lives; it's the basis of much of the advice we receive from parents, teachers and society growing up. But its always made me suspicious; more so as I get older. It's easy to assume that as we experience more, learn important lessons through trial and error about how things "work" in life, that we will become wiser, see further ahead and basically figure things out that we can pass on to those just hitting the learning curve. We could save them time and energy, help them avoid pitfalls and pain, give them pithy aphorisms and deep insights on how to play the game; but, honestly, it doesn't seem to work that way. Planning our future implies that we know who we'll be in the future. What we'll like, based on what we like now, how we imagine we'll react. So reading this article this morning, highlighted some interesting things I've observe

Some good ones here . Heck of a sales letter if you follow the link to the "Secrets" book he is pushing :-) I've run across most of these elsewhere, but it just goes to show the value of aggregating information for people (i.e. you can make doollars!) Some I can vouch for, having experimented with to good effect, my comments after the italicized extracts: 5.Vinpocetine. This extract, derived from an alkaloid found in the Periwinkle plant, is used as a cerebral vasodilator. It increases blood flow to the brain, which improves its oxygenation and thereby increases mental alertness and acuity. Research suggests it may also be the most powerful memory enhancer available to date. Gingko Biloba, on the other hand, his item #6, doesn't work . Old information. 11. Rosemary. This common herb may have an effect on the brain when the scent is inhaled. We are waiting for the research, but some people swear that just sniffing r