Carl Gustav Jung's legendary "Red Book" or Liber Novus has at last arrived. It is huge, and beautiful. It is an extraordinary work of vision-inspired art and accompanying calligraphic text (in Swiss German [I think] with English translations in the back). The original must be fabulous to behold, but this facsimili is beautifully produced. It is a bit like a twentieth century Book of Kells, that is, it is an illuminated manuscript that appears to be more a work of visionary art than the foundation for psychological theory. It is wonderful that this is has finally been taken out of the vault and published.

One of the reasons this book was held back from publication by Jung's family was that it was so highly experimental. Some psychologists have thought that it was evidence that Jung had had a psychotic break. My own experience with Jung has had more to do with his influence on the study of anthropology and folklore, where many of Jung's ideas concerning archetypes have become part of our understanding of human culture. Yet many other ideas, such as the idea of the evolution of human consciousness from "primitive" hunter gatherers to city dwellers, died out decades ago. I wonder how anthropologists of Jung's era would have regarded this work?

This book needs to be taken in gradually, a few pages at a time. It is quite startling to see someone's personal visions illustrated so boldly and graphically. But it may give me courage in my own artistic attempts.

I am still above ground. I have survived a house fire and the H1N1 flu & bronchitis this year.

I still have a house, in spite of the fire. It was a near thing, as the gas line was in the fire, but did not rupture.

I have a bathroom. Three months without sure makes a person appreciate the little things.

I have great friends and neighbors who have helped me through all this.

My little stray kitten has grown up to be a strong and confident Amazon who thinks she can take on the world (and is trying to help me type this).

I am better, well enough to be bored anyway. When I get up I quickly find that I need to lie down again. I have spun yards and yards of kid mohair into very fine yarn of various colors, because I can spin on a drop spindle while propped up in bed. I think it is time to start a pair of socks or something. Reading is a little difficult because my concentration is bad. I fall asleep and forget where I was.

After I wore out PBS, I played with the free on-demand features on my cable, which I never have had time for before. I watched five episodes of Monk, which conflicts with Star Gate Universe, so I am always missing it. But no episodes of Leverage were available. The available movie titles were uninspiring. Fortunately I have some DVDs I have not watched yet. Stardust was fun, I'd recommend that one. I am in the mood for light fantasy, so I am starting The Infinite Worlds of HG Wells miniseries.

I went outside yesterday and planted eight bulbs in soil I had already dug up and prepared before I got sick. So the ground was very soft. Yet putting in four tulips and four giant crocuses left me exhausted and gasping for breath. I will go out a little today as well. Even if it is tiring, I think it is good to get a little fresh air. I still have violas to plant. But I will take it easy.

I saw the doctor today and she confirmed that I have the H1N1 flu. I also have bronchitis, so I will start antibiotics for that. Bronchitis and pneumonia are pretty common with this type of flu. The good part is that we caught it in the bronchitis stage so that I don't have to do the pneumonia part -- I hope. But going to the doctor and the pharmacy was flat out exhausting. I will sleep now.

I have had the flu since it knocked me flat Friday. I have had a fever around 101 until today. Talk about a long weekend. Today I have chills, but that is an improvement. Can't eat anything much either, but I am keeping hydrated with water and fruit juice. Last month I was vaccinated against the types of flu going around except H1N1, so it seems likely that I am a statistic in the 2009 pandemic. Fortunately nothing much more serious than any other flu so far, except much more painful coughing than I remember. Okay, if you really want to know, it's kind of like having a ninja attack on the lungs. It doesn't take much imagination to see how people might die of this. I'll see my doctor this week to make sure that the bronchial irritation is just post-infection asthma and not anything more serious developing. With my fever down, I am not too worried about that at this point. But it is no fun. The weather is nice and I am too tired to even sit up for very long. Tomorrow may be better.

A neighbor down the street got me some food and more juice last night, but I wasn't able to eat very much. Fuji is very concerned and keeps washing my face to make it better.

I suppose the shot may finally be available about the time I get over this.

Something I would like to tell Kevin Drewry (aka Midian), who died this summer:  Today President Obama signed into law  a bill classifying acts against people because of their gender orientation hate crimes, as are crimes against people because of their race or religion.  Some of the most horrific violent crimes in the US are committed against gays, lesbians, and transsexuals.  Legislation to provide guidelines to legislators,  judges, and juries in the treatment of these crimes is long overdue.   Shortly after Matthew Shepard was killed in October 1998, I remember Kevin standing up in church to call for exactly this kind of  measure from the government. And he kept saying it too, whenever he had a chance, to whomever would listen. Kevin, wherever you are, you did good, and it finally happened.

We don't know a great deal about the ancient Minoan people: a civilization, advanced for its day,  wiped out by the eruption of Thera and the ensuing tsunami that occured in about 1628  BCE.  On Crete, and on Santorini, which is the island that remained after the eruption of Thera, the Minoans left behind exquisite murals that tell us something about who they were.  Their religion is a matter of archaeological speculation, but it is a reasonable guess that this flower, the autumn-blooming saffron crocus, was sacred to them. Perhaps other cultures in Europe who have used saffron for cooking and dying owe this to the ancient Minoan traders. 

In the ruins of the Minoan city of Akrotiri on present-day Santorini archaeologists have unearthed a mural of women taking baskets of saffron to a goddess who is surrounded by monkeys, birds, and griffons. She has a snake climbing in her hair. The Romans called her Potnia Theron and modern scholars call her the Mistress of Animals, but her name in the Minoan language is not known.   She appears in many places in Minoan art and this mural shows us something about how she was worshipped. 

I have not had much success with saffron crocus in my garden. It blooms for two years and then it is gone. Squirrels and damp soil probably do it in. The Piedmont  of Maryland does not exactly have a Mediterranean climate. I have planted it again this year, but in a large pot instead of in the ground to give it better drainage, so perhaps it will do better this time. In the photo, you can just see the tail end of a bee in one of the blossoms.

The following links are to an online catalog of an exhibition by the Thera Foundation. The images are of parts of the same large mural, left to right:

Saffron Gatherers

Mistress of Animals

In between rain showers I did a little weeding and planted a few things.  I dug up a sad peony that didn't bloom this summer and replaced it with a deep magenta chrysanthemum that may be happier in that spot.  I still need to find the peony  a better location.  I put in some pansies in the spots cleared by weeding. This should be a busy time in the garden. It is transplanting season, and there are many things, like peonies and pansies that are best planted at this time of year. But the weekends have been full of other activities or bad weather.  Today, at least it is warm, and if I wait until it is dry it may be cold by then. The weeds come out easier, but holes are harder to dig.  

I am marking daylilies that need to be moved to sunnier spots, as well as a few that will go to the compost -- my own hybrids that didn't make the grade. The better ones I can find homes for, but some, like the one with scapes that break if you brush against them, I wouldn't wish on anyone.   I have one that is very tall wit great branching and many purple flowers, but the flowers are too small for the size of the plant.  That one I have decided to keep, because it may be used to cross with big spidery daylilies and so give its architecture to the offspring. 

So it is a day for deliberations and trade-offs.

I had a great time at the Catoctin camp retreat. I was able to hike around a bit and take a few pictures. The mushrooms were not "in bloom" as they were last year. As I found only a few mushrooms, and none past their spooring stage, I think we are a couple of weeks off of the bloom season. It rained a little Friday night, and Saturday was damp and cold. In spite of the wisdom that rainy days are a good time to see wildlife, the critters seemed to be hunkered down and waiting for better weather. I did see a Pileated Woodpecker quite close and a few chipmunks, but nothing like last year.   I did have a great time in group activities and deep discussions with other campers, including talks about Pagan vs.  Christian mysticism with dmiley .  The various flavors of UU paganism were well represented. I think we ought to come up with some sort of activity relating to earth-centered spirituality for future years.  Sunday was sunny and beautiful, so I stayed a bit longer to enjoy the forest.   I have uploaded some photos to my Gallery.

On the way home I stopped to take the short trail "accessible" trail to Cunningham Falls, and took some pictures around the people who were climbing on the falls. I remember climbing up those falls when I was a kid, but it is off limits now in order to let the area recover from being overly loved by hikers. Many people ignored the signs and climbed off the viewing balconies and boardwalks to scramble on the rocks. Fortunately I didn't see any folks from our party doing that.

I was greeted last night by a cat who was thrilled to see me (though a friend had checked up on her while I was away), and a call from my brother in Texas.

At home this morning I realized how great it had been to have meals appear automatically for all but one meal. The camp mess is managed by the campers by each person being assigned to assist with one meal.   More experienced campers take the job of directing meals. It is a surprisingly good system.

I also came home to a house as cold as my unheated cabin. I couldn't figure it out last night, but it wasn't any colder than the two previous nights at camp, and so I thought I would just figure it out in the morning. But it wasn't that easy. My furnace is only a little over a year old and I have not had any trouble with it before, which means I have not had a need to learn how the various controls work.  I fiddled with the thermostat, which  seemed to be ok, checked the heater and found that the pilot ignition was working fine. Turned the electricity off and the system seemed to reset. Nope, still cold. I had almost decided that I needed to call the plumber when I realized that the fire fighters must have turned the gas off last June.  I had had the plumber turn the gas on once the contractor found it to be safe to do so, but maybe he didn't think about the furnace in the summer. Now, where could that control be?  A red lever on a pipe with a tag marked GAS! seemed pretty likely, though there was nothing to say which direction was on or off.  So I turned the furnace off, changed the position of the lever, turned it on, and voila! Heat!  You would think that something that important would be better marked. Perhaps mere homeowners are not supposed to understand these things.  Anyway, I am back to semi-civilized life again.

I am off to the Catoctins  for the weekend.  I took today off to pack and go up early, and I will have Monday off too. It is so nice to have a little time off to play. So much of my leave has been going to sick leave, this seems like a novelty.

I am building my first udu (ceramic drum). I went up to the studio on wednesday to cut the sound hole in the side and make sure it is ready to leave to dry.  Since it is a big coiled pot, and the top is moister than the bottom, I laid plastic over it lightly so that it will dry very slowly. That should prevent cracking while I am away. Next week it can go into the kiln, and I will start building the next one.

I will post photos of both adventures next week.

Researchers at the Whittemore Peterson Institute in Reno have shown a possible link between a retrovirus, XMRV, and chronic fatigue syndrome. 67% of the 101 patients who were sick had evidence of this virus in their blood. Only 4% of the 218 healthy controls showed evidence of the virus. Because of the immune system abnormalities in chronic fatigue syndrome, there has been speculation that such a virus might be linked to this condition for some time. Some people call chronic fatigue syndrome "chronic fatigue immune deficiency syndrome" or CFIDS, a name that reflects a view that is supported by this new research.  In Britian, medical researchers have suspected that there is a viral cause for chronic fatigue for many years, giving the condition the name "myalgic encephalomyelitis" or ME. Until recently, this was the diagnosis for fibromyalgia in the UK as well, but today the conditions are usually treated separately.

Some news stories about this, as usual, are confusing chronic fatigue syndrome and fibromyalgia, which are two different conditions (though both have chronic fatigue as a symptom). There has been speculation among researchers that  a virus causes one type of fibromyalgia for a long time. Herpes family viruses that attack the central nervous system (such as the cytomegalovirus) have been proposed as possible underlying causes. But, because many studies of immune system chemicals in fibromyalgia patients show abnormalities  (for example, interleukin 8 is too high and interleukin 10 spikes at night) a retrovirus has recently been considered a possibility.  Maybe this study will lead to more research in this area for fibromyalgia as well as for chronic fatigue syndrome.

Here is a link to the story on NPR  Oct 8, 2009

and in Science News Oct 8, 2009

I can't claim to be too much of a computer gamer. I did play a  pre-DOS version of the Adventure game (when adventure games were all made of little green words and the player's imgination), Othello, Spider Solitare, and three of the five Myst games.  But the shoot-em-up  and blood curdling adventure games have not been my cup of tea.  

So when my house was struck by lightening  and my housing space was reduced by ongoing construction this summer, I went in search of some computer games with minimal violence. The cat, the computer, and I all had to be out of the dust, and sanity demanded some solution.  The games had to be inexpensive and for pc, too, as my budget is reserved for things like architectural surveys and kitchen appliances these days.    Of the games I tried out, two that stood out were created by young people without large corporate backing.  Kids who have grown up in the computer age, playing with advanced software of various sorts, apply a different kind of imagination to gaming that is refreshing.  I wonder if inde games, like inde films, may be coming into their own.( Read more... )

When I read studies of the neurological symptoms of fibromyalgia, I am always reminded of American Indians' descriptions of what it feels like to have white anthropologists explain their culture to them. "Wow, really? And how may years did it take you to figure out this stuff that we have been telling you about all along?"   But, of course, it is important. One of the reasons many doctors insist that fibromyalgia is just a psychosomatic illness is we have all these symptoms that they say we can't possibly have. Having lots and lots of symptoms, to many doctors, is a symptom itself -- of hypochondria. It gets so bad that many of us learn to keep our mouths shut and just don't talk to our doctors about our symptoms because we get that, "Um, hmmm," and that look. Sigh.   Medical researchers need to do these studies so that they can tell practicing physicians in medicalese  that people with fibromyalgia are describing what they experience and how they feel accurately.  Once this preliminary explaining is done, we might  finally start to get somewhere. How long that takes will depend on the few researchers who are actually listening. This is how medical discoveries are made: someone, somewhere actually listens to a patient.
( Read more... )

I went to the 2009 NEA Heritage Award Concert on Thursday. The  evening was opened by Yoruba Orisha singer Amma D. McKen and musicians summoning the God Legba to open the way, and end ended with Queen Ida and the Zydaco Band playing "When the Saints Go Marching In," as all the other performers joined them on stage. What happened in between was pretty amazing. I have been to the awards concert a few times, but I think this was the best.  The link will take you to the list of awardees, including audio of interviews with some of them.

The Physick Book of Deliverance Dane,  by Katherine Howe, Hyperion Books, 2009 is a novel about witchcraft and magic in colonial America. No North American grimoire has ever been found, and this story is about a graduate student in American History searching for one that she finds tantalizingly hinted at in the history of her own family.  The book, set in Cambridge and Marblehead, Mass.,  is about the many things that magic and witchcraft have been said to be, focusing on the era of the Salem witch trials.  Modern pagans only make a cameo appearance along with the current tourist witchery of Salem.  The protagonist has little respect for modern Salem witches, until she actually needs to consult one. Similarly, she has a problematic relationship with her mother over issues of new-agey healing practices that are her mother's stock and trade.  Over the course of the book she changes her view of her mother's practice from inexplicable eccentricity to a modern version of a family tradition.  

The one problem I had with the book was the execution of Deliverance Dane, who actually survived the witch trials.  Better to stick to the history we do know and weave fiction around the rest (unless it is a fully developed alternative reality novel, which this isn't). But I did enjoy Howe's other departures from a strictly modern novel with historical flashbacks to something that might be described as New England-grown magical-realism.  This is not a story of the Salem witch trials that you have heard before, and well worth picking up. 

There is also a story behind this first novel, Katherine Howe has a Ph.D. in American and New England Studies and is the descendant of two women accused of witchcraft in Salem: Elizabeth Howe, who died in the witch trials, and Elizabeth Proctor, who survived.

Never did a bathroom look so good to me.  Never did running water seem such a luxury.  Partly it is the effects of deprivation: no more treks to the basement toilet, no more nomadic showering, and no more brushing my teeth in the kitchen sink.  But I also had a lot to do with the design of this bathroom.  I actually wanted the walls to be solid pebbles, but the contractor persuaded me that that may be hard to keep clean.  He suggested a three inch border, I said, no, six inches. He clearly thought that was a bit eccentric, but he went along with it.  I see it as the feature that makes it my design.  We agreed on a "mat" of pebbles on the floor so that the harder to clean areas would have tile.  I picked out the sink, toilet and tub that were like puzzle pieces fitting into a too-small space, but the result doesn't look crowded. 

After searching a while yesterday, I found a curtain in a color that compliments the stones. All the bathroom needs now is a shelf to put things on and a new door knob (the fire fighters broke one of the glass door knobs, but that will be easy to replace).  Eventually I will find an oak toilet seat to match the mirror, but that can wait. 

It is more than pretty. It has strategically placed grab bars, the pebbles on the floor make it hard to slip, the beige tile has a matt finish,  so it is non-slip too, and porcelain, so it will last forever. The toilet is at a height for getting up easily, and the shower can be detached and used sitting down.  I selected for more disabled aid than I usually need right now, so, hopefully, I won't have to think about that stuff as I get older.

And oh, that shower. It is the best massage shower I have ever used, and is designed for hard wear, so that it won't break if I drop it. It will be great for relaxing sore muscles.

Fuji thinks the bathroom is lovely. I already have found cat footprints on the bathtub and cat toys in the corners of the room. This morning I found her sleeping on the heated floor. She and I agree that the heated floor is wonderful.

More bath photos here.  Next battle: the kitchen. 

For the first time since lightning struck my house on June 9, I am able to take a bath in my own house.  My neighbors have been great about letting me borrow a shower, but having to tramp up and down the block just to bathe was getting pretty old.  The bathroom is not caulked yet, so I can't try out my new 21st century shower, but the fixtures are installed and they all work.  I also have grab bars, which will make life easier.  

Early in her life, my mother lived in a house in northern Maine with a privy in the back and a pump in the yard. A tub was set up by the kitchen stove for bathing.  She considered her family fairly well off because they had wood floors instead of dirt like her friend who lived across the street, and didn't have to go far to pump water, unlike the neighbor who sent their kids to my mother's house to borrow the pump.  How far we have come.

Steph

I was actually looking for the Encyclopedia Mythica when I stumbled onto this site called the Mythopedia.   It is compilation of astronomical and cultural history, attempting to prove a link between ancient cosmic events and myth-making.   Their theory may be difficult to prove or disprove without a time machine; like the theory that Akrotiri may be the inspiration for Plato's Atlantis, or that an ancient great flood that formed the Black Sea might have given rise to the flood in the stories of Gilgamesh and Noah's ark. These ideas are interesting to think about, but difficult to prove.  I am dubious of all attemts to prove that all myths come from any one source. These theories often seem to underestimate normal human imagination and the experiential knowledge of shamanic trance, common to most, if not all, ancient peoples. But, on the other hand, it is possible that cosmic events gave rise to some mythic ideas. Anyway, it's food for thought -- or science fiction stories.

Peter Morales, President of the Unitarian Universalist Association has put out a public letter on the health care debate. It doesn't say enough, I think, but it is a start:

UUA President's Letter to UUs on Health Care Debate

I have been very concerned about what is going on, but I don't know which of the proposed care reform plans will work best, but reform needs to happen. I think that is part of the problem right now, people need a clear-cut cause to rally behind.  Those who propose reform have waffled on what the changes will be and have bartered away too much, I think. The lack of a firm stand has helped insurance companies drum up resistance to change.

In addition, many people are not aware of the profound negative impact of health care insurers on the health care system. Yes, people are aware that many people cannot afford coverage, and that small businesses have difficulty helping their employees with health care premiums.

But the issue of most importance to me is, who gets to decide the future of medicine in the United States? Who decides who speaks at medical conventions, what research may be done, which treatments may be used, whose studies are published, which illnesses may be treated as illness, and which are viewed as "untreatable?" Health care insurers are powerful, they currently have huge clout in the practice of medicine, including the free exchange of ideas, as well as enormous influence on our politicians. Few people seem to realize that it is not only their personal health bills that are at stake, but the science of medicine in the US itself.

Gulf War illness was treated as if it was a psychological condition until there were two interventions by the US Government to acknowledge that these people were genuinely ill. The first large funds for research on fibromyalgia and chronic fatigue syndrome came from the US Government in 1999, because, when it came to funding research on Gulf War illness, researchers such as Daniel Clauw stood up and said that in order to understand the cause of Gulf War illness in thousands of veterans, research needed to be done on similar illnesses that affect millions of Americans (about 8 million with fibromyalgia, about 6 million with chronic fatigue syndrome). The reason you see ads for medications that help fibromyalgia now is because of government intervention then. The drug companies only took an interest in developing medications for fibromyalgia when independent research began to show that it was a medical condition and the large numbers of people needing treatment.

Welcome to my world. Now that there are three FDA approved drugs for fibromyalgia, the insurance companies are putting out a disinformation campaign that is astonishing in its scope. The effort to silence and discredit medical researchers studying illnesses like fibromyalgia is amazing. They want a do not treat protocol for fibromyalgia. "Nothing can cure it, so we should not treat it." Is the stance. We are expensive to insure, so we must be made into disposable people. This attitude is a war cry against people with chronic illnesses of all types and should alarm everyone who wants a good medical system for the future.

Neurological illness is most maligned because of whiplash injury. The same companies that provide accident insurance also provide health insurance. There is an inherent conflict of interest. Gulf War illness, fibromyalgia, and chronic fatigue syndrome were all considered to be neurological illnesses early in the research when the insurance company's campaign against treating them began. Gulf War illness, in particular, involves the brain stem. A permanent illness similar to fibromyalgia (called allodynia or traumatic fibromyalgia) impacts a high percentage of people with whiplash injury. Accident insurers work very hard not to pay out on whiplash injury claims. They know that science is against them. Although it was possible to fake whiplash injury in the past, in many cases  PET scans or MRIs can now show that the injury is there. In the future, blood tests may be developed that can show whether or not a person is in pain. That possibility is arising from fibromyalgia research.

We need to get insurance companies out of the business of deciding the future of medicine and the future of treatment for the chronically ill and the poor. But how do we fight huge companies that have found ways to influence both politicians and public opinion? Fear-mongering, as a way of influencing the public to take positions that are not in their own interest works very well. I am reminded of Orwell's novel, 1984. The truth can be changed, and any questions to the staus quo must be stifled with fear. Somehow we need to get past that to the truth.

The performance shown in this webcast is quite amazing.  This Aztec dance group is from Pennsylvania.  The leader, whose nom de guerre is Brujo de la Mancha, spoke Nahuatl as his first language. The Nahuatl-speaking peoples of Mexico are the descendents of the Aztecs.  The dance group he has founded is a revival, to be sure, but Brujo has done his research. The costumes and hand-made instruments are quite wonderful. The whistles and flutes are ceramic, made by Brujo. There is narration in Nahuatl, Spanish, and English. The symbolism of many parts of the performance and costumes are described by the performers.

The link I am putting here does not go directly to the webcast, but to a description with links to an essay and the webcast, so that you can choose read more or just go to the video. The webcast runs one hour:

Ollin Yoliztli Calmecac at the Library of Congress, June 18, 2009

I was at the performance, so, my shamanic journeying friends will be interested to know that when Brujo blows the ceremonial conch horn to the directions, he calls south then north, east then west,  up then down. I am not sure if there was a mistake in finding the compass directions or if it is part of the tradition, but when the next dancer calls the directions again, he calls east, then west, south then north, up then down, then puts the conch shell in the center of the altar.  (the narration makes it clear, in this case, that this is the order intended).  When the circle is closed, the conch is blown east then west, south then north, up then down.

Unfortunately the drum upsets one of the microphones. There is a snapping sound which was not apparent at the performance. But otherwise the video is quite good.