It is interesting that I got the most responses on my Blog when I talked about Jessie, the wounded soul German Shepherd. Clearly, there are other animal lovers out there. Mostly, I love wild animals but since I can't pet them and love them the way I can a cat or dog I settle (bad word) for domesticated pets. I had a pet wolf once, Virginia Woof was here name. Loved her as she was so special and amazing. She lived 16 years and died just a few months before my husband died. That was the worst year of my life. My two special friends who I wandered around the desert with gone in the blink of an eye. How do I show my love for wild animals, you ask. It is not easy. I volunteer with Liberty Wildlife and get calls to go rescue wounded raptors and pick them up (another story entirely) and take them to the hospital. I also co- founded a land trust who's sole purpose is to preserve land so animals can have a place to live and do what animals do. I never feed wild animals. I basically leave them alone so they can do their job. We all have jobs here and one of mine is to take care of creatures (I would include wild plants too here) who can't talk. Someone has to represent them in the legislature, in congress, etc. Look what we did to the passenger pidgin, the do do and the buffalo. If I had been alive then, maybe we would have a few of those left. I know, we have buffalo but nothing like before. What a travesty that was. One of the less nobel parts of our history.

I have been taking care of Jessie, the special needs German Shepherd for the last couple of days so I haven't had time to think much less write in my blog. Jessie was part of a drug raid. She was found tied up in the back yard was taken to the pound and was rescued by a group of people who love shepherds and then found her way to my friends. Dawn and Sylvia take care of my cat Ishkabibble when I go away so I take care of Jessie. Ishkabibble and Jessie are great friends as Ish was abandoned too and finds a another wounded heart in Jessie. Jessie wants to love and be loved but doesn't quite know how. She tries to cuddle and sit on my lap. She follows me around like a lost soul. I hate to think what her life was like before in the meth lab but it is amazing the spirit that survives in her. She is a joy. I only get animals that have been left behind and no one wants. I can't imagine owning an animal I had to pay for there are so many that no one wants. We are responsible forever for the things that we tame. Remember that from "The Little Prince". If you haven't read that book please do. I loved it as a teenager. It was a children's book but more than that. It has lessons for us all. Tomorrow, more on art, science and religion and maybe we can add some neuroscience in there too.

I have been thinking a lot about Greek Tragedies. I love them as they are so real and unreal, so historical and mythical at the same time. A perfect combination for a wandering mind. Anyway, Agamemnon (sic)( I am glad I don't have to know how to spell these names) led the Greek troops against the Trojans in that war. When he came home, his wife, Clytemestra and her lover killed him. It was then left for Orestes, the son to avenge his father's death. That was an absolute moral responsibility. Not to do so would have been unthinkable. It was also an absolute moral law never, under any circumstances to kill ones mother. What is Orestes to do? He must obey the ancient laws of retribution and also the law of mother protection. Well, he kills his mother as that I guess seemed the less of two evils. Imagine making a choice like that. This was one dysfunctional family. Theoretically, I suppose, Orestes murder of his mother should be avenged by someone, ad infinitum. Where does it end? As a flash back the reason Clytemestra killed Agamemnon, aside from the new lover, was because he killed their daughter in order to assure fair winds to Troy. It was his moral responsibility to lead those troops to battle, blah, blah. The ancient laws were difficult to live with. The good thing about this whole mess is that Athena intervenes on behalf of Orestes and instead of allow retribution to continue unabated forever she set up a court with a a jury of Orestes' peers. This is about the birth of civil law replacing the ancient one that may have worked for a while but as you can see could become very, very cumbersome. I like the idea of moral obligation and responsibility. I think we have lost too much of that. We depend on the law to such a degree that we abdicate our duty of others. I think too that I can understand a little better the motivation of the muslim fundamentalist that hate us. It is the ancient law that they obey. I don't know exactly what we did or when, maybe it was the crusades, or later colonizations that they are mad about but it seems to me that continuing the idea of retribution, eye for an eye, may not be the most intelligent way to handle it all. We just create another reason to hate us. Another reason for retribution. Tomorrow I want to think about immortality and the warrior. This may relate to the suicide bombers.

What I think is really interesting is that when Einstein was working out his Theory of Relativity artists like Picasso were doing cubist paintings which to me seem to represent visually what Einstein was saying. Picasso was giving us a relativistic view of things. I don't particularly like his painting as a visual expression but love them as a metaphor for the times. Think about it. The world seemed to be changing on all levels not just art and physics. Social institution were breaking down too. It seems it was a time of great metaphysical changes in the human psyche (a greek word for soul, by the way). Social relativism began seeping into our social structure. Moral systems that we thought were inviolate began to crumble. We began to question the existence of the God of our youth. As a society we began leaving pre critical naiveté behind. The consequences have been profound. The question is, "Who started it all?" Picasso? Einstein? Us? Fate? W.B. Yeats wrote, "The Second Coming" about that time too. In it he describes a world that is coming apart, where "the best lack all conviction and the worst are filled with passionate intensity". Sound sort of familiar, doesn't it?

Albert Einstein said that the most important question you have to ask yourself is if you live in a friendly universe or a hostile universe. Which one do you live in? I live in a friendly universe. One filled with wild possibilities and lots of wonderful ironies and jokes, lots and lots of jokes. We can also look at ourselves are being made of stardust or thermo nuclear waste as they are basically the same thing. I like the former stardust one better, but must admit that the thermo nuclear waste one has a lot of merit. The world is divided between the nucular waste people and the star dust people.

To continue with my diatribe on the science/religion conundrum that I started yesterday (see blow entry) I need to say that I think the most profound theology is being done in the physics departments. It is there that the mystery is disclosed and then deepened. Scientists at this point do not have the hubris to name the ultimate creator. By doing so, of course, we limit it to some transcendental yenta involved in everyones business. That puts the infinite on the same level as Santa Clause and the Easter Bunny. Well, not really the Bunny but definitely Santa who is defined in popular culture to children as an immortal transcendental being who" knows when you have been good or bad", etc. Ah for the days of pre-critical naïveté when we could believe all that stuff without question. I suppose that is what the story of Adam and Eve is really about. The time before doubt and skepticism. Before we had to create science and religion when we had everything and nothing. The question is is how many of us would want to go back to that in our adult form? Personally, I need the snake. What about you? Snake or no snake? I guess we have to define the snake. In my mind the snake in Genesis is not the incarnation of evil but the path to knowledge and by extension to humanity. When we became human our relationship with the infinite changed. Change the way you look at something and the thing changes. The infinite evolves with us. As we know more we know less.

As an artist I spend way too much time in my head but that enables me to come to some interesting conclusions about "What it is all about". I have been listening to the "Joys of Science" an extended science lesson I wish I had gotten when I was in 6th grade instead of the great experiment of hooking the lightbulb to the battery. That was the lesson in electromagnitism which I understand now to be the most awesome force there is. I degress. I am also doing a course on the Tao and am trying to bring these two things together in my mind. The two concepts, let's call them science and religion, are NOT mutually exclusive, they are the same search. Science deepens the mystery and I suppose that is why some religious types don't like it much since they have it figured out. I like what Max Planck, the father of quantum physics said when he got the Nobel Prize. "There is no matter as such. All matter originates and exists only by virtue of a force which brings the particles of an atom to vibration and hold the most minute solar system of the atom together. We must assume behind this force the existence of a conscious and intelligent mind. This mind is the matrix all all matter." That is it. And the really cool thing is, is if you look at this matter vibrating you change it. Change the way you look at things and you change things. It fits, doesn't it. More later. To work

A phantom poster here with permission to access and post!
Anne, or is it I, spent the day yesterday helping my niece, or is it me, unpack things at her, or it is my, new house.
I, or is it she, really enjoyed the swim in the salt water pool.

I, or is it My niece, was really grateful for the help!
(Thanks Auntie A!!! Love, Niece B)

This is the first post.... I have nothing to say.