Well-being during isolation

Jane S. sent me this list, which I can probably use for my well-being.

• Shower, take my meds, and drink 6-8 glasses of water a day.  Each glass is 8 fluid ounces, so drink 48-64 fluid ounces a day.  Got it, but don't we need six or eight little boxes to check off?
• Clean one thing/space.  I've been sorting through books and papers, tossing some and trying to arrange my bookshelves so they make more sense for me.
• Tend something growing/living.  That would be Clawdia, who doesn't hesitate to tell me when she wants to eat.  I used to have spider plants and other potted plants, but I gave them away because Clawdia could get sick or die from nibbling on some of them.  And she did nibble.  She is also feeling stressed out, picking up on the feelings of humans around her and our strange behavior, like wearing masks just to walk to the trash chute.  Clawdia likes to get out of our apartment by walking to the other end of the hall with me, but lately she stops at our door and peers out fearfully.  Sometimes, she turns around and hurries back into our apartment.
• Be mindfully present to a sound or song.  I hear the sounds of traffic on the highway, and Clawdia alerts me to any noises she hears coming from the hallway outside our apartment door.  I have learned to tune into the sound of sirens, especially ones that cut off suddenly, and I go to my windows to see if an ambulance is arriving at my senior living facility.  Yeah, it happens too regularly.
• Be mindfully present to a sensory feeling.  The five senses are seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting, and touching.  Let's see, I definitely check my sense of smell frequently, knowing that loss of smell is a symptom of the Coronavirus.  Yes, I can smell and taste the tomato, the corn, the mushroom barley soup.
• Be mindfully present to something I see.  I've been noticing the people in my neighborhood, now that I've spent months staying at home and looking out my windows.  People walking dogs, delivery vans, family groups with baby buggies.  I've been surprised how many walk in the street.  Part of that is that they are distancing themselves from slower walkers on the sidewalks.  I can see Walgreen's from my kitchen window, and recently I saw a young man apparently walking home along my street, swinging two big bags that each looked very much like 12-packs of toilet paper!  Aha, that young man is stocking up again.
• Be mindfully present to a spiritual practice.  Meditation is a spiritual practice that I do.  Clear your mind, and sit quietly for a few minutes listening to this music from YouTube.  This one also has calm, relaxing photos of pleasant places.  Enjoy it, and relax as you are being mindful.
• Reach out to a human outside my home.  I text, talk on the phone, and send private Facebook messages every single day.  I don't always have to do the reaching, either, as others also want contact.
• Do one thing to get my heart rate up.  I need to work on this more regularly.  It's easier to exercise when I have to meet with a group on a regular basis, than it is to make myself exercise alone in my apartment.
• Do one thing I'll be glad I did later.  Making myself go to sleep at a reasonable hour is something I'll be glad I did, but it's hard to stop reading when there's nowhere I need to go tomorrow and nowhere I need to be.
• Do one thing just because I want to.  I love to write, so writing this blog post is what I enjoy doing.
• Get in at least one good laugh.  I like puns, so posting puns on my blog and on Facebook keeps me laughing.  Let's end with this one from The Book on the Bookshelf by Henry Petroski, 1997, page 222:

"The more things change, the more they remain insane."

Alone, alone, all, all alone

This morning's email included a Questions and Answer about prayer, which included this line:

Many progressive Christians have come to adopt centering prayer or other forms of contemplative prayer or meditation as their primary form of prayer.

Two quotes

In this second article are a couple of quotes that I contemplated this morning, the first by a theologian I studied in seminary:

"Loneliness expresses the pain of being alone, and solitude expresses the glory of being alone." ~ Paul Tillich

Tillich compares two words:  loneliness and solitude.  Ah, yes, those of us on lockdown this year can understand these words.  But which am I myself feeling?  Loneliness, like so many of my elderly neighbors?  Or solitude, which is something enjoyed by most introverts.  Because I'm gregarious, few people think of me as an introvert, but actually I am.

To determine whether you're an extrovert or an introvert, ask yourself whether you recharge when tired by enjoying a lively party with friends or spending time with a book.  The introvert chooses the book.  I enjoy my alone time, though after four and a half months of staying home, it's getting to be a bit much. Alone for extroverts who need people feels more like the quote from Samuel Taylor Coleridge's The Rime of the Ancient Mariner that I had to memorize when I was a youngster:

"Alone, alone, all, all alone,
Alone on a wide wide sea!
And never a saint took pity on
My soul in agony."

The old mariner was in agony, being "Alone, alone, all, all alone" after his shipmates died at sea.  That's rather different from being alone in my apartment, surrounded by unread books.  After looking up this quote, I bought The Rime of the Ancient Mariner for my Kindle.  Another book.

And then there's the second quote I contemplated this morning, a proverbial story told about Mother Teresa:

Reporter:  "What do you say when you pray?"
Mother Teresa:  "Nothing, I just listen."
Reporter:  "Well, then, what does God say to you when you pray?"
Mother Teresa:  "Nothing, He just listens … if you don’t understand that, I can’t explain it."

Do you meditate or spend time contemplating or meditating?  Lately, I've been contemplating what's out other people's windows around the world.

Aerial view of Brooklyn

WindowSwap

Taylor's window in Brooklyn, New York, overlooks a corner.  I watched cars, trucks, vans, a garbage truck, pickups, a bus or two, mopeds, and lots of bikers on the two-way street as they moved, stopped for the lights, and turned right onto what appears to be a one-way street.  I noticed some of the pedestrians were wearing masks, but not all.  One biker tried to cross traffic against the light and almost got hit.

I forgot to mention the window is on the second floor, giving me an unobstructed view of all this hustle and bustle.  It was fascinating.  A delivery man trucked a stack of boxes across the intersection and through the door held open by a merchant.  Mundane little details, but I enjoyed it after weeks — nay, months — of mostly staying inside my apartment and only venturing out for my mail every two or three days.  I'm getting groceries delivered, too, so the main way I'm keeping in touch is by phone, texts, email, and Facebook.

End of the year ~ a time to meditate

Clever idea for the new year (but starting TODAY).  In one of my clergy groups, someone lamented:  "Never tell the pastor anything important on Sunday!"  There are too many people and too many distractions to remember it all, even in small congregations.  If it's important (like a prayer request, hospitalization, upcoming event, need for a visit), give the pastor a written note.  Another pastor responded with a card she had made up (illustration above).  This is a great idea!  I told her:

"Thank you!  I'm retired now, but I typed up a slightly revised version of this and printed out a dozen to give it a try.  Living in a senior retirement center and making plans with lots of friends to get together or to do something for someone means I occasionally forget to jot it on my calendar.  I'll try this out today, as a matter of fact.  Looking forward to it."

What else do I plan for the coming year?

Barbara's cat Mindy

• I'll write in my new Becoming journal.
• I intend to do more with my music, like regularly practicing the piano and teaching Gail to play.
• I'll miss the friends who died this year:  Evelyn, Barbara, and Sandy
• I'll also miss their cats:  Mindy (Barbara's cat, who moved to Vermont), Sasha (Sandy's cat, who moved out of Donna's apartment this afternoon), and Patches (Evelyn's cat, who has never appeared on my blog before).
• I'll exercise with our little group of friends on Friday afternoons, as we've been doing since April.
• I'll continue to clear out the books in my apartment, keeping only the ones I'm likely to read or re-read in this lifetime.

One way I'll do this "book removal" project is by climbing Mt. TBR, the challenge to read the TBR (to-be-read) books already on my shelves.  My goal is to read at least 48 of them before the end of the year.

Now I need to finish these library books and get them out of my way, right?  Right.

Advent meditation

Sasha on Donna's bed

Low: An Honest Advent Devotional ~ by John Pavlovitz, 2019, theology

God comes to meet us in the low places of our lives, Pavlovitz says.  When we plant our feet firmly in the dirt of everyday life, we see Jesus meeting us in our low places.  The invitation of Jesus, he says, is not to escape this world "to an elevated heavenly sanctuary somewhere; it is to bring heaven down" (p. 5).  Jesus gets low, meeting us on the ground where we are.

Today is the second day of Advent.  Yesterday, I started this book that Donna gave me four months ago.  She and I met the author last year when he talked about an earlier book, so we expect this one to be thought-provoking, and it is.  Today, the book really got to me.

Week 1 ~ Monday

"All our relationships can be understood as intersections:  the places our road meets that of another person and both stories are rewritten, sometimes wonderfully and sometimes less so. ... Today, dwell on the people who've crossed your circuitous path and changed your story. ... Sit with gratitude for them and for the difference they've made on your journey" (pp. 8, 9).

You may wonder why I've shown you a pensive cat to illustrate my thoughts.  Donna has been keeping Sasha while Sandy Richter was in the hospital and rehab and back in the hospital for close to three months.  I was at Donna's Sunday morning when she got a call that Sandy had died around 3:00 a.m.  Somehow, Sasha seemed to know and had been acting strange all morning, Donna said.  In this photo, Sasha reflects how I was also feeling ... sad, bereft ... but also grateful that I got to know Sandy.

Sandy Richter (1940-2019)

Sandy crossed my path here at the Crown Center, where we ate at the same table.  This photo was taken in the Café last year.  I reflected on how Sandy impacted my life, and my thinking branched out to other friends who have died this year:  Evelyn in July, Barbara in October, and now Sandy seven weeks later.  An ambulance wailed out of our parking lot yesterday, taking another very sick friend to the hospital.  Here's Sandy's version of the Litany of Remembrance that I wrote for Barbara.

Litany of Remembrance

When I see a funny cat picture on Facebook and want to share it,
I'll remember you.
When I recall you saying, "We only grow taller until we're perfect,"
I'll remember you.
When the elevator door opens on your floor at the Crown Center,
I'll remember you.
When the friends at "our" table sit around talking after dinner,
we'll remember you.
Because you've been so much part of our lives at the Crown Center,
we'll remember you.
So long as we live, you too shall live, for you are now a part of us,
as we remember you.

It's been a sad year, with lots of us feeling low.  I guess I really need this time of meditating on the pages of Low: An Honest Advent Devotional.

Monday meditation ~ on the laundry

A wee visit to Scotland

This morning, my friend Barbara posted this terrible pun on Facebook, saying, "This is something that you should enjoy!"  I don't know whether or not she meant that for me (I'll ask her later), but it fits.  I am, after all, the punster who has been covering the bulletin board by the elevators on my floor with groan-worthy puns.  I'll probably print off this little mouse in a tartan (or is it a hamster?) and post it, too.

Anyway, I left this comment on Barbara's Facebook post to say I do enjoy the pun:

Aye, it's right up my alley.  Or should I say, "It's right up my loch"?  A loch is a lake, over there in Scotland, like Loch Ness.  My kilt would be made from the tartan of the Campbells of Argyll, from whom I'm descended.  Want to see the tartan?  Here 'tis.

This blue-and-green color pattern, with a little yellow and white and black thrown in, is something I would actually wear.  I like blues and greens.  I probably have more blues and greens in my closet than any other colors.

And here's a picture of Inveraray Castle, the principal family seat of the Dukes of Argyll.  See how easily I can get lost when I start meditating on these things?  From puns, to Scotland, to kilts and tartans, to castles, and now, one more thing.  The music, of course!  For my purposes, it only makes sense that I share "The Campbells Are Coming."  Click the link to listen to the music, played on bagpipes, which is where we started up above.  Remember?  Here are the words to the chorus, from the Wikipedia article which has all the verses, as well:

The Campbells are coming, Ho-Ro, Ho-Ro!
The Campbells are coming, Ho-Ro, Ho-Ro!
The Campbells are coming to bonnie Lochleven.
The Campbells are coming, Ho-Ro, Ho-Ro!

Oh, you noticed "bonnie" in there?  Yes, I was a bonnie wee lassie when I realized my name was a word.  According to various sources, "bonnie" means "good" or "attractive."  Was I always "good"?  Of course not!  I'm no longer a wee lass, either.  But maybe it was my name that has made me feel more Scottish than the French, Irish, and English that's also in my genes.  Tell me about your family history.

I had to come back and share this photo I found on the Inveraray Castle site.  I didn't see it earlier because it's on the page about how to get there, and I won't be going there any time soon.  Probably never.  Isn't this a great view?

Meditating on the limits of human language

A Woman's Meditation
by Ruth F. Brin

When men were children, they thought of God as a father;
When men were slaves, they thought of God as a master;
When men were subjects, they thought of God as a king.
But I am a woman, not a slave, not a subject,
not a child who longs for God as father or mother.

I might imagine God as teacher or friend, but those images,
like king, master, father or mother, are too small for me now.

God is the force of motion and light in the universe;
God is the strength of life on our planet;
God is the power moving us to do good;
God is the source of love springing up in us.
God is far beyond what we can comprehend.

That's from the 1986 book Harvest: Collected Poems and Prayers by Ruth F. Brin (1921-2009).  It's the second poem in the book (p. 4), following "God of Rain and Wind" (p. 3), in which are these lines:

I pray to You for myself, for well I know
That when a person dies a world is destroyed.

In the third (p. 5) of the five poems Amazon allowed me read of this book, I found these lines to ponder:

Help us through study and thought and meditation
To find the direction we are to travel,
With the same sure sense You have given the flying birds.

I first read the original poem (at the top) today, a week after Wilda Gafney shared it in her blog post Majesty, Mercy, and Mystery.  I found it again here, shared with the permission of the estate of Ruth F. Brin, z"l.  What does that z"l mean?  Why is it there?  A search gave me an answer:

It's the abbreviation of the common honorific "of blessed memory."  The Hebrew transliteration is "zikhrono livrakha" (m.) / "zikhronah livrakha" (f.).  In Hebrew that would be (f.) זיכרונה לברכה‬ \ (m.) זיכרונו לברכה.  It is often abbreviated in English as either OBM or z"l.  The Hebrew abbreviation is ז״ל‬.

Ah, yes, I've heard my Jewish friends say "of blessed memory" when mentioning someone who had died.  Back to Ruth Brin's poetry.  I am intrigued and have been meditating on these words, these concepts, these thoughts of a poet.  From the back of the book:

"Today it is difficult to find a Reform, Conservative, or Reconstructionist prayer book or anthology that does not include her writings."

Looking through the copy of the Jewish prayer book I got at the JCC book fair in 2015, I don't know how I'd ever determine which prayers had been written by any specific person.  The focus is on God, not which person composed each prayer.

To continue meditating, go read Wil Gafney's Majesty, Mercy, and Mystery.  By the way, I found someone online selling a used copy of Harvest (which seems to be out of print) and ordered it.

Two ways to see a tree

There's only one photo here today (which happens to be Tuesday, day TWO of October), but it shows two ways to see the tree.  I first noticed the tree's reflection in the water, full of leaves.  Only then did I see the "actual" tree had no leaves.  What a perfect photo!

To see why the leaves didn't float away randomly, click on the photo to enlarge it.  The pool of water appears to be very shallow.  I love it!  Something on which to meditate.

Road crossing a forest

Today I will ponder "a road crossing a forest" viewpoint, as opposed to our human assumption that the deer is crossing one of OUR roads.  From the deer's point of view, that road came through the forest, making a mess of things, causing problems, making life difficult and extremely dangerous.  Oh, to see the world ― and life ― as others see it.

Contemplation ~ twisted chimney

Who?  What?  When?  Where?  Why?
How?
Best bricklayer ever?
Built using common core?
Nightmare for Santa?
To be or knot to be?

This unusual looking chimney, twisted into a knot, is actually an abstract sculpture called "Performance Piece" on the campus of Johnson County Community College in Overland Park, Kansas.  It's 24 feet high and made from "galvanized steel, epoxy, pigments, cement, bugles, fire brick, foam, and fiberglass" by the sculptor Dennis Oppenheim in the year 2000, according to this source.

Bugles?

Yeah!

Click to enlarge

the top photo to see

the bugles attached

to the base.

Meditate on this

Sandra Boynton posted this drawing on Facebook recently, saying:  "Some literary scholars ponder whether this book, first published in the Orwellian year 1984, may be some sort of prophetic allegory."  The book she means is Blue Hat, Green Hat.  Here's what I found online about it:

Three earnest animals and one misguided turkey learn colors and clothes in this Sandra Boynton classic.  Serious silliness for all ages.  Artist Sandra Boynton is back and better than ever with completely redrawn versions of her multi-million selling board books.  These whimsical books feature nontraditional texts and her famous animal characters.

The pages use these same four colors, but the article of clothing changes from hats to shirts to pants to coats, etc.  The animals wear different colors on different pages.

My favorite character is the turkey.  If there's a "prophetic allegory" here, maybe it's how like the turkey we've become.  But let me ponder that a bit longer, meditating on the "oops" moments in my own life.

Meditating on the oceans ~ and all that moves within them

Psalm 69:34 (CEB*)~ "Let heaven and earth praise God,
the oceans too, and all that moves within them."

This blogger thinks of the places in the ocean
"where the garbage gathers.

Swirling islands of plastic bags and water bottles

and things we have thrown away."

What an image to ponder today!  I've seen photos like this one (found here), and I am appalled at what we are doing to our planet.  We don't have an alternate, you know.  We'd better take care of this one.

The top image above is from an article with a video of 35-year-old garbage islands.

* CEB = Common English Bible

Meditating on the spirit

The Theft of the Spirit: A Journey to Spiritual Healing with Native Americans ~ by Carl A. Hammerschlag, 1992, psychology, 9/10

A series of remarkable stories about spiritual connections.  Using Native American experience as an example, the author provides advice on living wisely, well, and spiritually in an increasingly materialistic world.  He shows how to journey past fear and illusion to a new strength of spirit and self.  Whether telling the story of how the Hopi Indians lost their cultural center when they lost their sacred religious objects, or how brave men and women have faced incredible odds — mental, physical, or emotional — this book is compelling and moving.

Here are some quotes I want to save from this book:

To Joseph Campbell, who knew that the meaning of life was in the experience of it.
To Mahatma Gandhi, whose prescription for living with joy has not been improved upon:
"If you're going to be somewhere, be there."
(These two are in the middle of dedicating the book to 13+ people)

"Without faith in a believable ethic, we suffer. ... Without any cultural or political guides who inspire trust, our perceptions of reality are created by sales professionals.  Image has become more important than substance ... If self, technology, and possessions have become our pervasive mythology, how can we reawaken in ourselves a sense of community that can sustain us?  We can return to a life of morality through telling and listening to stories, through experiencing genuine awe, through participating in rituals and ceremonies" (p. 25).

"Movement pumps the immune system!  If you stop moving your body, if you just lie down and become inactive, you slow your immune response.  Sneakers are the secret of life!" (p. 56).

"Researchers have now shown that prayer, a sense of personal power, love for pets, a family — all promote a healing response" (p. 88).

"Prayer is how you stop thinking about yourself; prayer is the taming of the you. ... it's a heart song ... Speech is a mind song" (p. 153).

"The Hopi say that clouds are formed from the last breath of living things.  Each cloud with its own shape is a reminder that the form comes and goes but its essence is transferable.  Wood burns and becomes ash.  And in being consumed by the flame, the wood gives off heat, which becomes moisture, which accumulates in clouds and showers rain, allowing the wood to reemerge as flowers" (p. 163).

"The Hopi say humanity must collaborate if we are to restore our existence on the planet" (p.164).

By the way, the author is a (formerly arrogant) medical doctor.

Meditating on a memory

Love and Will ~ by Rollo May, 1969, philosophy

"The heart of man's [sic] dilemma, according to Rollo May, is the failure to understand the real meaning of love and will, their source and interrelation.  Bringing fresh insight to these concepts, May shows how we can attain a deeper consciousness." ― from the back cover.

It was the early 1970s.  I was in college full-time, was a single mom of three children, and left my mother with them while I stuffed ads and comics into the Sunday edition of the local newspaper on Saturday nights.  The presses were always breaking down, meaning we had to stand around and wait until they were repaired.  So I always took a book along with me.

One time, I took Love and Will to work.  Rollo May was an influential existential psychologist, and I was studying existentialism for my degree in Philosophy and Religion.  Some of the other women stuffing the Sunday papers with me apparently read mostly light romance novels.  One near me leaned over to read the title out loud, smiled, and cooed, "Ooooooh, LOVE !"  I had to explain that it was a philosophy book, not a romance novel.  If not for her remark, I wouldn't remember this was the book I had with me that night.

Meditating on a window design

Click to enlarge the photo

I am astounded by this design and will probably be thinking about it for days.  Who came up with this idea of a hidden bathroom window?  Why?  For what purpose?  Privacy on the ground floor?  Was the room too small for both a medicine cabinet and a window?  Was someone just wanting to be creative?  All it took was screwing hinges to the window casing and the frame of the mirror.  I'm impressed.

Oops!  But wait!  This design puts the water pipes against the outside wall, where they are more likely to freeze in winter.  Now I'm wondering where this is located.  Maybe it's in a place with little or no really cold weather.

As I continue to ponder this room, I'm trying to guess what's to the left of the mirror.  Is there a wall at 90-degrees?  Or does the wall extend several feet to the left?  Where's the toilet?  Where's the tub or shower?  What's outside that window?  Yard?  And then I ask, front yard or side yard or back yard?  Surely not a city sidewalk, since I see green bushes.

Click to enlarge the photo

Expanding my thinking about the design of the home, I remember this hidden staircase I also saw online.  It connects a library with ... who knows what?  A bedroom?  An office?  An aerie?  (I'm being poetic ― I don't mean a literal eagle's nest.)  Something else?  What's up there?  Or what would I put above that library if it were mine?  I see another window, too.  It seems odd to have a window that drops below the stairs.  Lots to ponder today, as I let my mind wander into design conceptions.

How to begin your meditation

"The purpose of a book is to teach you how to think

and not to do your thinking for you. . . .

As soon as any thought stimulates your mind

or your heart,

you can put the book down,

because your meditation has begun."

― Thomas Merton

(quoted by Marianne Borg in the Foreword of Days of Awe and Wonder: How to Be a Christian in the 21st Century, by Marcus Borg, 2017)

Meditation ~ on synchronicity

While checking my blood pressure this morning, I noticed a small flat box of papers on the bookcase next to me and, after I had finished recording my BP score, sorted through the box.  I've been decluttering, but hadn't even noticed this little box.

Imagine my shock to discover a small envelope from Ada's mother to "Miss Bonnie Setliffe" in Chattanooga, Tennessee. It was postmarked January 14, 1959, exactly 59 years to the day I wrote about Ada yesterday.  Inside was a typed note and an invitation to a kitchen shower for me ... given by Ada Rentfro and her mother.  I'm amazed to find this after not seeing it in over half a century, and I'm astounded it's such an exact date!

The outer envelope has a purple 4-cent stamp on it and was sent to me at this address:

Miss Bonnie Setliffe

1517-1/2 E. 26th Street

Chattanooga, Tennessee

I googled my old address and "went" there with the help of Google maps and "walked" around the block.  There's a building that looks like a warehouse in what was our grassy area of the projects, a bunch of World War Two barracks converted to make housing for the soldiers and sailors coming home from the war to find there was not enough housing for their families.  In other words, everybody's daddy in our neighborhood had been in the war.  (Back then, few women were in the military.  I wrote about one exception a few years ago, calling her an "independent dame," but I digress.)

The two invitations are TYPED, not xeroxed, without errors ... except one tiny one, where Ada or her mother typed an "e" over an "r" in the last "e" of "Please" Reply.  There was no DELETE key on manual typewriters, so messing up meant having to retype the whole thing.

Front of both invitations:

YOU ARE INVITED

to a

KITCHEN SHOWER

for

MISS BONNIE SETLIFFE

Inside:

Given by:  Miss Ada Rentfro

Mrs. Lucille Scollon

Please Reply:  MA2-8842

Inside, opposite side:

Bonnie's kitchen will be yellow and white,
If it is empty, won't that be a fright!

To feed her man she'll need just lots
Of kitchen gadgets and bowls, pans and pots;

For her Clyde dear she'll have to feed,
Let's give her all the things she'll need.

Seven-thirty to come, on Friday night,
January 23rd, will be just right -

To the Chattanooga Gas Company's Blue Flame Room,
Please come and help Bonnie's kitchen stock boom!

There was also a note enclosed:

Bonnie,
This one is for your scrapbook,
I was afraid I might forget to give it to you later.
Lucille Scollon

The postmark, which is hard to read in the photo, says:

Chattanooga Tenn with a 3 on the left.  It was mailed on Jan 14 1959 at 3:30 PM.  The words that cancel the stamp say, "FIGHT INFANTILE PARALYSIS JOIN MARCH OF DIMES."

How do you like that MA2-8842 phone number?  If I remember correctly, examples of Chattanooga numbers were Madison and Tremont.  Maybe I'll suddenly remember my old phone number in a few days; that's how my elderly memory seems to work these days.

Meditating ~ Tao Te Ching 17

When the Master governs, the people

are hardly aware that he exists.

Next best is a leader who is loved.

Next, one who is feared.

The worst is one who is despised.

If you don't trust the people,

You make them untrustworthy.

The Master doesn't talk, he acts.

When his work is done,

the people say, "Amazing:

we did it, all by ourselves!"

__________

Acting simply

True leaders

are hardly known to their followers.

Next after them are the leaders

the people know and admire;

after them those they fear;

after them, those they despise.

To give no trust

is to get no trust.

When the work's done right,

with no fuss or boasting,

ordinary people say,

Oh, we did it.

__________

With the highest kind of rulers, those below simply know they exist.

With those one step down ― they love and praise them.

With those one further step down ― they fear them.

And with those at the bottom ― they ridicule and insult them.

When trust is insufficient, there will be no trust in return.

Hesitant, undecided!  Like this is his respect for speaking.

He completes his tasks and finishes his affairs,

Yet the common people say, "These things all happened by nature."

__________

1.  The best government, the people know it is just there.

The next best, they love and praise it.

The next, they fear it.

The next, they revile against it.

2.  When you don't trust [the people] enough,

Then they are untrustworthy.

Quiet, why value words?

3.  Work is accomplished, things are done.

People all say that I am natural.

__________

Top to bottom:

• Tao Te Ching: A New English Version ~ by Stephen Mitchell, 1988
• Lao Tzu: Tao Te Ching: A Book about the Way and the Power of the Way ~ by Ursula K. Le Guin, 1997
• Lao-Tzu: Te-Tao Ching: A New Translation Based on the Recently Discovered Ma-Wang-Tui Texts ~ by Robert G. Henricks, 1989
• The Tao Te Ching: A New Translation with Commentary ~ by Ellen M. Chen, 1989

Meditating

"Exercise and eat right" is my latest mantra, and this photo is the image I hold in my mind. The DASH diet is about food and exercise, but there's a component that may surprise some of you:  meditation and mindfulness.  From the DASH Diet for Dummies book:

Practice mindfulness (pp.220-221)

• Take a deep breath ~ to lower stress
• Be more compassionate ~ to self as well as others
• Plan your day ~ make a to-do list
• Focus on the positive

Meditate (p. 224)

• Meditation involves mindfulness and reduces anxiety, pain, stress, insomnia, and depression.  Learn how to enjoy "just being" instead of constantly "doing."

Exercise (pp. 222-223)

I spent an hour exercising this morning, using the suggestions in my Living a Healthy Life with Chronic Conditions book (pp. 103-124).  Unlike the classes I've been attending here at the Crown Center, this book includes floor exercises.  Clawdia was curious about my being on the floor, and I had to keep shooing her out of my way.  I've decided to alternate exercising (MWF) and meditating (TThS).