Pantheism...

 

               Pantheism claims that everything is connected, everything 

                                                                 is Divine…

Although I don't like the labels that encourage us to isolate and categorize, "Everything is Connected, everything is Divine" makes so much sense to me that it seems rather obvious.

A given.

But we want answers, to the big questions about our place in the scheme of things. All the religions, superstitions, myth and conjecture about who, what, where, why, and how, are often no more than mental masturbation combined with struggles for power and control .

The fact is, I don’t know, and you don’t know either.

As metaphor though, the stories can help us understand things which cannot be understood. I think walking on water, because you believe you can, is about as cool as it gets. Doesn’t happen, but it’s a great metaphor for the power of belief.

Too often the metaphor is lost and “my way or the highway” becomes the norm with each group. The insistence that everyone else out there, look like us, be like us.

Oddly, each group is the only one to have all the answers. Just them.

Very divisionary, given the fact that we’re all more alike than different.

Democrats and Republicans lead the way with that stuff, insisting that it must be one or the other. No middle ground.

For any thinking person, that’s absurd.

Almost everything has middle ground and shows up in shades of grey.

Almost everything.

The one absolute and unchanging power that controls it all, everything, everywhere, are the “Laws of Nature”. One “H” combined with two “O” under the same conditions anyplace in the universe, yields the same wet results. Another miracle… as are we all.

“OK, then who put the Laws of Nature in place? It must be God.” No, that’s simply a personification our ego is unable to step away from. We want to create the story, rather than the other way around.  The story created us, bit players at best.

We can’t grasp the idea of something that just is, without a beginning, an end, or a creator.

Call that creator God if you wish. But know that the rules apply evenly across the board. It’s level. There are no such things as miracles, no god sitting comfortably in his observation office who may decide to suspend the laws of Nature if we pray hard enough for Aunt Minnie to not be dead in the recliner over there. She may look dead, but she either is or isn’t, there is no appeal process to push it in the direction of your own private wishes.

No little miracles, no anomalies outside of “The Laws”.  The miracle is all of it, everything that ever was, is, or will be.

The first sunlight peeking over the distant tree line? Now that’s a fucking miracle! Pick up a freshly fallen leaf and look at it under a microscope. Another miracle. A drop of lake water? Ciliated hairs drive protozoan bumper cars through chaotic traffic. Worlds within worlds.

No big deal. Just another miracle.

Our ego is so great that we question the possibility of life on other planets. “Could anything as wonderful as us exist elsewhere?” In the not-too-distant future I believe we will know the answer. Yes! Of course. Life is everywhere, but we’re in our infancy and the universe is rather…vast, so it takes time to discover.

But it’s out there… because the meaning of life…(drumroll…)  is life itself.

Life pops up like a weed between cracks in city sidewalks. It has the potential to exist in any environment… and does. “Alien” life probably won’t look like the undernourished human child with a head the size of a beer keg that we may envision.

As with ourselves, it all depends on the environment. Life grows, tailored along the way to fit its environment perfectly. Fish in water, birds in air, lots of creatures walking about encased in bodies made for their specific gravity.   

I wonder if we are up to the challenge of trying to communicate with a life form similar to a lichen? What of common ground? Could an alien be turned on by a bevy of deep-sea tubeworms 5,000 feet down in our oceans, all belly dancing seductively around a fissure? Perhaps one of those frisky snipe eels that hang out at the same club hoping to get lucky, would do.  Alien life may well look like another protozoa, swimming through the drop of pond water that is space, its own solar system simply another atom in a giant’s world.

No matter the lens we choose to view it through, life just is. Our own value judgements “good” and “bad” don’t apply other than when we ask: “Good or bad for whom?”. 

When that young Impala grazing on the savannah, a vision of beauty and vibrant new life, has its throat torn out by a Cheetah hiding in the grass…is that good or bad?

That’s life, a full spectrum. We’re part of it, connected by the elements that we all share, the stuff of life, stardust.

Everything is Connected, everything is Divine…

Trigger Fish Bucks $$$$

 

On gym mornings, my regular routine puts me on a treadmill at 6:50am. I appreciate the attached TV on those machines and usually catch the tail end of The Joyce Meyers Ministries show before “Parking Wars” starts at 7:00.

But for the ten minutes before I get to look in on the creative but illogical flood of reasons people believe that they shouldn’t be ticketed, I get Joyce.

If you don’t know her, Joyce Meyer is an American Charismatic Christian author, speaker, and president of Joyce Meyer Ministries. Worth around nine million, she and hubby own multiple homes and fly around in their private jet.

TV preaching can pay very well.

Certainly it pays more than enough that if you are unhappy with the face that god gave you, you can get a new one. So apparently Joyce brought a picture of a triggerfish in to her plastic surgeon and said “I want this face,”

I guess that god favors triggerfish.

It’s all good. Not my path but there are many paths and just because I’m not on the same path as you are, doesn’t mean I’m lost. Right?

Wrong! Joyce says I am lost. In spite of the fact that humans worship over 5,000 different “gods” in this world, Joyce knows that only hers is right.

OK, fine. It’s important to believe in whatever club or cult you join if you want the epiphany offered by that club experience, be it Moose or Mason, Baptist or Shinto, Boy Scout or Shaker, go for it!

Live and let live.

But this morning Joyce threw one out there, rather casually, that I couldn’t ignore. She said: “It must be horrible for people who don’t know Jesus, to have no hope. I can’t imagine what it must be like to live without hope. I don’t think I could even get out of bed in the morning!”

I’m not a Christian, but when I got up this morning, I distinctly remember hoping that the iPhone store opens at 9:30. That it will be sunny all day. That the dogs will like the boiled organ meat and rice I’m fixing for them. That Carla will come home early from work this afternoon. That Putin and Biden don’t start a war. That the last fruit on my Blood Orange tree is ready to pick.

The list is endless. The same is true for every human who ever lived. We all thrive on hope in one form or another. It usually has nothing to do with Jesus.

So I’m thinking that either Joyce is phenomenally stupid, which I don’t believe is the case, or she thinks her listeners who send her money for jet fuel, multiple houses and Trigger fish plastic surgeons, are.

Which could it be?

Hitchhikers...

 

When my friend said that she used to hitchhike as a teenager, my first thought was…I can't believe that you were out there hitchhiking at age 14!  But then I remembered picking up two 15-year-old hippie girls who were out hitchhiking years ago when I was a bachelor.

My house was a huge four-story place with three other guys back then. We each had our own floor. Party central.

The girls had been thumbing rides all over the Northeast for weeks and planned to keep going. Both were wrapped up in identical frocks, brightly flowered and flowing in tandem with their long blond hair in that summer breeze. They looked like an ad for Sun-In hair lightener standing on the side of that road, thumbs outstretched, pleading for adventure. Both stunk of BO and dirty laundry. I brought them home and let them take long showers, turning my bathroom into a sauna. The three of us lay around on my bed that afternoon, looking up at the undulating orange parachute that was the ceiling of my room, smoking a joint and listening to a new Ry Cooder album I had gotten my hands on the day before. Quadraphonic sound and an open balcony door full of blinding sunlight.

The girls wanted to stay with me, for the three of us to live together that summer, maybe even forever, and I wanted to keep them.

Those were the days of “love the one you’re with” but I knew my girlfriend who lived nearby wouldn't allow it.

Being ten years older than those two girls, I really didn't like the idea of going to jail either, so after an innocent afternoon of jabber and freedom, I gave them some cash, drove them to their next destination, and dropped them off. Wishing them well, everyone was full of smiles, good cheer, and reluctance to move on.

This time, they smelled of Ivory soap and sunshine. I knew they would get another ride in a heartbeat.

I've always regretted kicking out those two beautiful hippie girls, turning down a once-in-a- lifetime opportunity to create stories for my old age, but I’m forever glad and relieved that I did. That was an entire Pandora’s Box full of trouble that I did not need to open.

Dropping them off on the side of the highway, I worried about who they may run into next time.

R.I.P?

 

We’re insatiable. Gnashing our increasingly worn teeth with each devastating loss. Oh my god…Betty White. (Yea, but she was just minutes away from her 100th birthday. We should all be so lucky.) Dobie Gillis…ancient. Sidney Poitier…ditto.

I can barely see the iPhone screen through my tears after hearing the devastating news about Bob Saget… as I frantically search Google, trying to remember who the hell he was.

We, as a society, are phenomenally bored, in constant need of ever more shocking and higher-profile deaths to mourn. Anything to break the monotony.

Wonder what Jack Nicholson is up to?

Hey, calm down, don’t give yourself an aneurism worrying about it. We all eat, sleep, poop, scurry around quite a bit, and die. Everything, everywhere, dies. It’s just part of the package.

But dying isn’t the problem, that’s just life. It’s the walking dead that we need to worry about. All of us that are still breathing.

 I watched the 1990 Robin Williams movie, “Awakenings” on Netflix recently. It  tells the story of a doctor who  discovered the beneficial effects of an experimental drug when administered  to catatonic patients. The main patient (played by Robert deNiro) and the rest of the patients, are awakened after being in comas for decades and have to deal with a new life in a new time.

It's an interesting and fun premise, and wacky hilarity ensues…but that’s not the point.

Now fully awake for the first time after spending 30 years in a coma, Robert DeNiro takes a long look around. With his new-found appreciation for life itself, DeNiro realized that most people sleep-walk through their lives and are rarely appreciative of just how wonderful it is to be present, breathing life in and out. We spend too much time in a different form of coma, worrying about things that may or may not happen in the future, and almost no time being in the now, being present.

Robert DeNiro had to awaken from a thirty-year coma to really see it. Many of us never do.

 Sarah Ophelia Colley Cannon, aka country comedian Minnie Pearl, would race out onto center stage at the Grand Ol Opry and crow: "How-w-w-DEE-E-E-E! I'm jest so proud to be here!" Her familiar greeting never failed to elicit a huge audience response of recognition…and agreement. Yes, Minnie was happy to be on stage to entertain the nice people, but she was also stating what should be obvious to all of us…life is short, revel in it, celebrate the moments, be present. We should all be “jest so proud to be here!”

That’s our responsibility, our challenge from Bob Saget and…oh my God!…now Louis Anderson too! (Google, Google) (And from anyone else near or far who has already transitioned.) I believe they would tell us the same thing if they could…enjoy the ride right here and now. This is heaven, this is hell. Stop worrying about the next thing, be present, be ecstatic that you are simply alive. Be like Minnie “Just so proud to be here!” That’s our obligation to Dwayne Hickman, Meat Loaf, all of those who are no longer on life’s stage.

I take it all to heart, being conscious to maintain an “attitude of gratitude”. That said, I  often have to agree with Clarence Darrow when he said, "I have never killed a man, but I have read many obituaries with great pleasure." 

So there’s that too.

 

Inner Sanctum... Heaven and Hell...

 

I was ambushed, twice, once when I was a kid and more recently, by memories that opened a door shut tight for sixty years.

In the early 1960’s, my family spent a few Summers at the Institudo Allende in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico.  An artist retreat and school, we spent time with teachers who mentored us in sculpture, painting, silversmithing, and leathercraft.

Revisiting San Miguel several years ago, proved to be a fascinating walk back in time,  to a place I only recognized in brief flashes.

Sitting on a hard granite bench in that damp stone room, facing what is now the gift shop, I was waiting for my ladies to return. Looking up, I surprised myself, suddenly remembering those images, those faces that I hadn’t spoken with in over sixty years.

Started in 1959, the mural was only a couple of years along when we first visited. It was still a work in progress, but of course, so was I.

Little of the Institudo was recognizable to me as I wondered around, but when I sat down to wait for the girls to come back out of the gift shop, it hit me hard.

Those images washed over me like a tsunami, jumping out from the wall, ferocious with color.

Sixty years prior, I had hidden in the sanctuary of that cool stone room, an echo chamber that magnified the sound of the blood pounding in my ears, panting back at me with each rapid exhalation, I was sweaty from running, racing away from a patch of dry scrub in a distant field, where I had been attacked.

Walking quietly, alone on a dirt path, I had been hit hard from behind. Some kind of animal struck my lower back and beat at both sides of my head. A guttural screaming in my ears matched the savage whipping at my face and eyes.

Screaming inside with fear and surprise, scared and adrenaline loaded, I turned to face my attacker.

A huge black and grey goose with a wingspan wider than I was tall. He was pissed and coming back at me for a frontal assault.

Without forethought, as I spun around, I picked up a thick piece of tree branch lying at my feet, striking that goose one time, viciously, squarely, on top of his head as he flew in to attack me once again.

Wack!

He dropped like what he was, dead weight. God’s marionette strings were cut abruptly the second I landed that club.

Frightened and immediately remorseful for the beautiful body that lay still at my feet, ashamed of taking his life, I had started running, full speed, all the way back to the Institudo. Finally stopping to catch my breath in that quiet stone sanctum, breathing hard on that very stone bench where I was sitting.

It all came flooding back to me. The adrenaline dump that spawned such violence, followed by deep regret. Shaken and sweat cold, I replayed the scene, thoughts of how I could have better handled the attack. It was his territory, not mine. I should have just started running. Having learned about the fight or flight response that very school year, I wished I had chosen flight.

As my heartbeat began to slow and the echo of my rapid breathing quieted, a familiar flash of blue glided past the stone archway into the courtyard, silhouetted in bright sunshine. I knew that blue dress with its billowing pleats of cotton, that young girl, my age. I knew her sweet smile that she had flashed like a laser beam directly to me from across the dining room, shorting my circuits and wobbling my knees.

She kept a secret hidden in the folds of that dress. She thought I didn’t know, but I did. I had instantly spotted her arm, the way she shrouded it, her insecurity, tucked under those blue waves of flowing cotton.

She kept her truncated left arm, her shame, concealed from the judgement of prying eyes.

My first girlfriend.

Blond sunshine, the daughter of another American guest. Birth had shortchanged her in only one way, and had been exceptionally generous in every other. Keeping that arm hidden from view in the pleats of her full dress, it was her big secret.

Everything else about her was perfect.

That shy smile when she caught my eye in the hallway electrified me, head to toe.

When I saw her pass the archway that day, I jumped up and left the cold stone chamber and the trauma of my encounter with death, to trail after an angel wrapped in vibrant blue.

By the time Summer rolled to a close, before both of our families were to leave Mexico and return home, I sat with her there in our special spot, one last time, on that same stone bench, under the watchful eyes of those shrieking visions. Two twelve-year-old kids, whispering like conspirators to keep our words out of the mouth of those crazy images that parroted our words back in that stone echo chamber. It was there that she timidly revealed her left wrist to me, pulling it slowly from under folds of blue cotton, trusting me with her deepest secret.

I already knew, of course.

She thought that I would care, see her differently, somehow damaged. If anything, the opposite was true. I told her that nobody who mattered in this world would ever think badly about her because of it. Anyone who did was a fool.

She lightened as she realized that I had known all along but it made no difference, in my eyes. I thought she was perfect.

In turn, I trusted her with my own dark secret. The goose, my shame. She was sitting next to a murderer.

She comforted me, told me that I did what I did out of fear. I simply reacted. Not my fault. I needed to let it go.

She said I was brave.

At that moment, in that holy place of heaven and hell, I like to think she saw herself in a better light for the first time, bright and untarnished.

That seemed fitting because there and then, in that same cold sanctuary, all those years ago, I was forgiven of my sins, by an angel.

 

 

 

 

Otter's on the Water

 

Otter’s on the Water

We were simply driving around this afternoon, running errands, when Carla suggested that we get lunch somewhere, rather than just go home. That’s how it starts. Ned’s? Corner Sushi? Maybe Patty’s? We live in The Shores, so that’s our turf. “Let’s go to Black Molly! They have that dish you like with angel hair and a crab cake.” I suggested.

That’s when we saw the “Otter’s” sign… and we knew where we were going. Pulled a U-turn, headed East, toward the water. I was happy to see that the parking lot was confined to the parking lot, not stretched out along the access road. There were even a few spaces open. Sweet!

Yup, we walked right in and got a perfect seat.

Fast forward…a waitress we’ve seen before, who really knows her stuff, greeted us immediately. Carla got soup of the day, a Lobster Bisque. Creamy? Lobster forward? Thick, fresh, and decadent? Check, check, and check.  She loved it. Her only issue was that it didn’t; have enough lobster chunks in it. I pointed out the fact that she complains that every meal she gets, out or at home, doesn’t have enough lobster chunks in it, according to her. Yesterday I had to tell her that it’s not normal for her ice cream to come with lobster chunks.  

She admitted her Bisque was delicious.

Then I insisted that she get the Lobster Roll. Like me, it’s huge, hot, and hunky. (OK, I’m none of those things but this is my review, so give me a little slack here!)

Prime rib for me with lots of horsey sauce, Smashed potatoes. Collard greens that had been cooked forever with some bacon or fat back, exactly as they should be.

A tall draft Sierra Nevada with a Tito’s neat. Hey, I went to the gym this morning and I’ve done all my chores, so allowed.

Carla looked hot in her cool overalls, still knocking me out 45 years after she first walked into the newspaper where I worked, looking for a job.

Cozy table against a wall so the assassins couldn’t get to me without risking a fork to the eyeball…

Bright & open inside, expansive out, lightly salted air. Attentive waitress.

Spread out in front of us… lobster, prime rib, a tall hops product ….and a huge serving of gratitude…

Otters was freaking awesome this afternoon.

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Kristin Price This is one of my favorite reviews that I have read

Krista Purcell Ahmad Kristin Price agreed

Gretchen Dozois Thomas Kristin Price ditto

Tara Ann Kristin Price -agreed!

Debbie Lane Kristin Price that is my thoughts too. Made me smile

James Taylor Beautiful as always Maverick

Dominique Tredik Please write more reviews! You are great!

Michele LaRouche McDonough Fabulously written review. Thank you so much.

Melanie Whitney Totally awesome review.

Otter's on the Water Hugh Maverick Haller before I tell you how appreciative I am of this post, can I please say that I've never related more to anything than to the comment about assassins? (I 100% listen to wayyyy too many crime podcasts). More importantly, this review is such a fun read. Thank you so much for the kind words! Please ask for Britt, Lyndsay Nichole Burnett & Steph next time you're in! We absolutely must meet you. We'll make a special Lobster Bisque for Carla will extra extra lobster. Cuz honestly who doesn't want more lobster?! We may have to look into that lobster ice cream too.....Julie Tilton Glisson I loved reading your review! Very well written and entertaining!   Food sounds delicious!

Larry Hession Loved your review. 

Edie Lee I hereby dub this review "fresh"!! Good job!!

Catherine Briggswood Great review

Victoria Lynn Smith Love your recommendation…

Melanie Lowery Limoges This was so fun to read

Dianne Cullum Your reviews are always captivating!

John Andrea Smith Very impressive!

Julie Kay Gustavson Have you considered being a food critic on a regular basis??? Great reviews!!!!

Darlene Thompson Galambos Entertaining read and a kick in the pants to go try that bisque!Kimberley DeBoer Clearly, you're a writer. What a great review!

Callie Wood Excellent read

Kenyetta Stockdale Thanks your review is making me hungry   Gotta go here now

Sheila Bell Love your review. Very entertaining & has convinced me to go to Otters. After reading some of your other reviews I now want to try Hull’s.

Kristie Cochran Well said and much appreciated recommendation.

Cindy Jones Cute.

Cindy Roseman Mellone Awesome review!

Astrid Hallock Craycroft Great review!

Cory Murphy I've never commented on one of these, but this my friend is a golden review!

Shawn DeJesus Thank you for sharing, I honestly love love love your review

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Pot Tales...

 

In 1969, air travel for two suitcases packed with loose pot was relatively safe. No dogs yet, no x rays. I flew from Atlanta to Boston to pick up ten pounds of “shake”. Hit and run. Then I was back in Atlanta, without incident, after grabbing my two full-size suitcases off the luggage carousel.

With all senses on full alert, I could feel the heartbeat pulsing in my ears, drumming timpani in my chest, but no hands on my shoulder saying “come with us”.

No cops, no problems.

In those days, there in Alabama, one joint could put you in jail for a very long time. Ten pounds was a big deal for me, a first.

My college buddies, Howard and Al, picked me up at the airport for the three-hour drive back to school in North Alabama.

The late-night drive was uneventful as we left Georgia and were only an hour from campus in Alabama.

Howard was driving. Being 6’4”, with long stringy hair, he squeezed his oversized frame, all knees and elbows, in behind the wheel. Al was sitting in the passenger seat. It was his Mustang we were driving. Between them, the console featured an ashtray surrounded by black pits burned into the Rayon carpet from numerous cigarettes and joints that so often missed their mark. The floors were littered with Pabst Blue Ribbon empties, foot stomped and flattened.

I sat in the back, a large grey suitcase under each arm.

We were in a dry county.

Blissfully high and road hypnotized, there was only the sound of crickets to pause as we sped by, leaving a fading trail of sound as The Moody Blues sang of nights in white satin.

So close to the safety of the campus, I was finally able to relax, drifting in and out of the conscious world.

Slowly, almost imperceptibly at first, the Moody Blues added a new instrument, some kind of a high-pitched wail getting louder and louder.

Howard looked up into his rear-view. “Oh Shit!” was all he needed to say. We knew. He started to slow down as the flashing lights bathed us in terror. Finally stopped on the side of the two-lane blacktop flanked by endless dark fields of farmer scrub, I sat frozen in place, watching the rotating lights of the patrol car circle around those wide-open spaces like a lighthouse scanning flat seas.

All of us had rolled down our windows to air the car out as two Alabama State Troopers towered over both front windows. On Howard’s side, the eight-foot trooper used his flashlight to illuminate the ashtray overflowing with roaches, then spotlighting the empty beer cans on the floor.

I have no memory of what was said. I was thinking about my dad. A successful attorney with his own firm in Manhattan, dad specialized in international business law, not criminal defense, but he knew people. He and I never had a “hands-on” “I love you dad; I love you son” kind of relationship. It was more of a Ward Cleaver manly handshake kind of thing, but I knew he was always there for me if the shit hit the fan. He had my back. This, of course, was an entire barn load of shit hitting a windmill.

Calmly knowing that I was going to do serious jail time, my question was centered on wondering just how much my dad could do to help reduce the sentence. Would I ever be able to marry, have kids and a life? Did I dare to think maybe I would get away with only 7-15 years or so?

I assumed it to be a Trooper’s wet dream in those days to get their hands on a few long-hair hippie types, from New Jersey no less, in a dry county, speeding, with PBR empties covering the floor of their car.

Oh, and one incontinent clown sitting in the back seat with his arms draped over two suitcases packed with pot in a state that still put marijuana in the same category as heroin and morphine.

Knowing that my dad would do what little he could and that I would spend my foreseeable future in some godforsaken Alabama prison, I started to worry that the troopers may enjoy using those long wooden batons to beat us, just for fun, before taking us in.

All a blur, I remember the lead trooper going back to answer a squawk on his car radio. Returning to the driver side window, he looked down at Howard, handed him back his drivers license, and said: “You boys go straight back to campus now.”

Both cops trotted back to their cruiser and took off fast, siren wailing, kicking up stones in a cloud of dust.

Everything went black and silent as they left. I could smell the rot of plants in the fields, hear the crickets start back up, the pinging of our own car engine, still hot from the drive.

Ever so cautiously, like tiptoeing through a mine field, we began to move again, in slow motion.

We knew that we had just witnessed a miracle, in a remote field somewhere in North Alabama, and that for now, life would go on.

---------------------------------------

Over the next few weeks, in frequent, animated replays, Howard, Al, and I came to realize that the troopers didn’t recognize the smell of pot. They never questioned my suitcases, after all, by friends had picked me up from the airport. They never thought all those roaches in the ashtray were anything other than roll your own cigarettes, which were fairly common at the time.

All they had was a few new Jersey hippie boys, drinking beer when they shouldn’t be, heading back to school.

Bigger prey, and a dispatch that could only have been from a merciful god himself, called them away.