Ageless in Spirit: Discussions and interests for our times

 October 25, 2020 Last evening Rebecca and I were talking about history, archetypes, seminal events in my life, and Carl Jung. She was interested in the words  crone, hag, and witch. According to Wikipedia " i n folklore, a crone is an old woman who may be disagreeable, malicious, or sinister in manner, often with magical or supernatural associations that can make her either helpful or obstructing. The Crone is also an archetypal figure, a Wise Woman. As a character type, the crone shares characteristics with the hag." But prior to about 7000 B.C. these three words had much more positive  meaning  including wise benevolent women who guide and are facilitators of well being  and goodness. In Europe and the Middle East the religions of the times evolved so that  patriarchal authoritarian bible, papal, and Koran based social rules and practices made these three words mean the first sentence as described in Wikipedia. I've reviewed Gabbert book in my past posts. She pointed

 October 23, 2020 Freedom from and freedom to. We have now a polarized nation with a very controversial president who is crass, misogynistic, argumentative, belittling, macho competitive, and a liar, spinner of conspiracy nonsense, a cheater in relationships of others loyal to him, a reputed rapist, and proud sexual conqueror of woman, and selfish so the deaths and morbidity of our Covid epidemic does not concern him. His business enterprises have continued while he pursues policies that lobbyist suggest to him from clients with corporation interests and maybe foreign government interests. He is proud to say he pays as little as he can in taxes but now he is being audited and his financial records now reveal troubling foreign loans of over two hundred million dollars. He does not respect the Hatch Act. The party to which he belongs is fairly silent concerning these character sociopathic behaviors, but instead are a do nothing senate majority that gave a great tax break to the wealthy b

On Saturday we hiked up Waimano Trail towards the Halapepenui Trail. As  we entered the steeper trail going up the ridge towards the Waiau Trail the uluhe became thicker slowing our progress and the heat of the day and humidity made the way more difficult. I rested a few times on the way just behind Richard Rovin and Baby his dog. We both stopped and sat in the uluhe talking for fifteen minutes about a Beatle song "Let It Be" written by Paul McCartney.   When I find myself in times of trouble, Mother Mary comes to me Speaking words of wisdom, “let it be” [Chorus] Let it be, let it be, let it be, let it be Whisper words of wisdom, let it be [Verse 2] And when the brokenhearted people living in the world agree There will be an answer, let it be For though they may be parted ,  there is still a chance that they will see There will be an answer, let it be [Chorus] Let it be, let it be, let it be, let it be Yeah, there will be an answer, let it be Let it be, let it be, let it be,

 October 16, 2020 Last evening we had my son David, his wife Lisa, her son Alexander, their daughter Katherine and her partner Lindsey over for Chinese take out out on the lanai with two tables separated but intimate. Alex is living with his father's family. He has finished his education in music. He is unemployed waiting to return to Los Angeles hoping for some sort of employment in his field. In the meantime, he seems quite isolated doing some reading, at times practicing his guitar and composing, and exercising with weights. He joins us for dinner but since it's after 5  P.M. he refuses to eat anything due to self imposed restriction not to eat after 5. He shared this evening that he finds himself unable to complete his tasks that he sets out for himself for the day so after 11 P.M. he decides to go out walking at least 7 miles. When he talks about anything it's usually about his own thoughts and reflections on how to think rightfully and truly. He is reading Thinking Fa

 October 13, 2020 July 11, 1939 is my birthday. I'm 81 years of age. My life time of living, doing, working, playing, relaxing, reading, curiosity learning, adventure, sleeping, napping, laughing, hiking, listening, talking, arguing, loving, and sharing is nearing its end. I'm, reminded of my age when I see or read in the news about the death of others younger or older while I live my days. My body wears the age well but more wounded with achilles tendon rupture of left leg requiring a hard brace for hiking, peripheral neuropathy so unsteadiness when standing and moving about requiring extra attention and hiking sticks when on the trail, prostate hypertrophy with frequent urination with hesitancy and care not to wet myself and my surroundings, sleep interruption due to this and aging, heart attacks with stents, coronary bypass, and various medications for blood pressure, blood thinner, artery health, macular degeneration with surgeries for past retinal detachments and vision ac

 October 9, 2020 I'm reading a series of three essays by Elisa Gabbert in her book The Unreality of Memory and other Essays. I'm impressed with Part One. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/11/books/review/unreality-of-memory-elisa-gabbert.html We are capable of understanding the complexities of the world but also capable of obfuscating and changing the facts to suit our beliefs. Our fast thinking system, our theory of the mind thinking, our addiction to stories and narratives that may make good fiction is a legacy from our journey from Africa as a species that had served us well in the initial epochs of our hunter gatherer existence. Our slow thinking system, with it's powers for deduction given enough data and our deductive ruminative thought experiment search for solutions to puzzling reality has moved us to a very technological sophisticated world today where we have gone to the moon, increased lifespan limits and averages, and thrived so we are seven point five nine four b