The High School Reader

I started a new journaling technique today. I bought an old book, in this case, "The High School Reader". The flyleaf states: Entered according to an Act of Parliament of Canada, in the year one thousand eight hundred and eighty-six, by the MINISTER of EDUCATION for Ontario, in the Office of the Minister of Agriculture.

At the time it was a published in 1886, it had a ticket price stamped on the front of Sixty Cents.

1886? Sixty Cents? I paid $10.00.

The book I really wanted cost $80.00. It had tissue thin paper that crinkled as each page turned. It smelled of age and time past, of a future never caught up to, never realized. Each page light as air, it sat heavily in my hands. Erudite. Learned. Weighty matters.

"It's perfect," I told the shopkeeper. Until I looked at the price. And then its perfection paled into that future light of knowing -- I couldn't pay $80.00 for a book upon whose pages I was going to write and paste and draw and colour.

And so, I found the next perfect book waiting on a shelf by the cash register. The High School Reader.

The previous owner had written her name in cursive on the inside front cover. Tidy. With letters inked over on the edges resembling caligraphy. Aggie Mather, Thurlow, Ontario.

And on the inside page, "If I should chance to drop this book/ and you should chance to pick it up/ and if you wish my name to see/ turn to page 103.

I turned to page 103.

Now since you have took the time to look/ Turn to the page in the back of the book.

I turned to the page in the back of the book, and Aggie had written:

Oh you goose you cannot find it/ Shut the book and never mind it.

Intrigued, I could not shut the book.

This Aggie had spiked my curiosity.

I want to go hunting for her. To do a quick 411 search but in 1896, ten years after the book was published and the year Aggie wrote her name in the front cover, 411 and Internet searches didn't exist.

And Aggie has long since left the world for other realms. Yet, still, I wonder about her. This woman of the spidery pencil marks littering each page. I want to know who she was, yet, not know.

The intrigue is much more fun than knowing. The anticipation of a mystery I know will never be solved sometime in the future much more enticing than the real and immediate fact of knowing in the present.

She has written in pencil throughout the book, this Aggie Mather. Written notes in poetry and prose. Her writing is tiny -- even with glasses it is hard to discern her scribbles.

Beside the title of the poem, "The Bridge of Sighs" she notes, Lyric. She commits a sin by drowning herself in -- and I cannot read the words -- she jumped from London Bridge, she concludes beside the first paragraph.

The Bridge of Sighs
Thomas Hood, 1799 - 1845
One more Unfortunate,
Weary of breath,
Rashly importunate
Gone to her death!

There is a note between the third and fourth line. Pencil thin. Indecipherable.

The object of writing such a journal is to highlight words within the printed text while writing entries on the page.

I began...

Beginnings. I write on a page lined with thought and find no sympathy for my thinking. The power is not in what I understand but rather in my remembrance of what was.

The non italicized words are the highlighted words I randomly chose from the text.

It is an interesting process this journal writing. To create a sentence using words already on the page while writing freefall. Challenging.

I write another sentence:

Some of these words I write are simply insights that cannot be experienced without losing their value.

In the Trial Scene from "The Merchant of Venice" Aggie has underlined words, obdurate, malice, forfeiture, moeity, commiseration, brassy bosoms. "Pound of flesh" she writes in the margin beside forfeiture.

I wonder who owned this book since Aggie first made her tiny marks. I want to let them know that in the distant future someone bought it for 100 times its original value and still it was a steal.

I set pen to page. Deep breath. I begin to write upon the PREFACE page. I finish my first page of writing and on the second page paste a collage of words and images. This is to be a memory journal, an art object, a personal vision map. Of times past leading to the present opening windows to the future.

It is a fascinating exercise, this using pages of a book to write upon. Past. Present. Future combining on one page. I fast forward. Flip through pages to page 207. Aggie is present here. She's underscored several words. "The Sensual and the DArk rebel in vain,/ Slaves by their own compulsion."

She's underscored 'Sensual', 'Dark', 'Slaves' and 'compulsion'. Above compulstion she's written, 'ignorants'.

I wonder if she twittered nervously like a schoolgirl at the word 'Sensual'. If she blushed and paused nervously before saying the word outloud.

She is present on the page and I am intrigued by The High School Reader from 1886 and a woman named Aggie Mather whom I shall only meet in the past tense of what she wrote in the pages of a book I am using to journal my way into the future.

In the "Introductory" it states, "The ability to read well cannot be attained without much pains and study. For even a moderate proficiency in the art of reading two requirements are essential: (1) A cultivted mind quick to perceive the sequence of thoughts which the words to be read logically express, and equally quick in is power sympathetically to appreciate the sentiment with which the words are informed... (2) a voice so perfected that its utterances fall upon the ear of the listener with pleasing effect.... Of these two requirements the first is undeniably the more important...

I wonder about the 'pains' required to read well. I wonder about how to best cultivate my mind to perceive the sequence of thoughts.

In that perception, the sequence of the future rests, idly waiting for time to appear upon the horizon.

"Hi Aggie, I write. "Nice to meet you. It's one hundred and five years after you wrote your little poem on the inside cover of your High School Reader. The utterances of your pencil fall upon my eyes with pleasing effect. The future of which you once dreamed is here. Hope you like it."

and I close the book. I will return to cast markings on the page, to create another story upon the story told long ago. I shall return, some time in the future, to tell a story beyond the pages of this book that Aggie bought for 60 cents in the year one thousand eight hundred and ninety-six.

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Today's entry is part of Blog Carnival over at Peter Pollock's place. Today's one word promt is "future".

To read other entries, click on over to Peter's place and enjoy the creative and varied prose other writers share on the prompt, future.

Nameste!

Snowmen melting into compassion

If you want others to be happy, practice compassion. If you want to be happy, practice compassion. Dalai Lama

It began with a thought drifting into my meditation like the recent snows of May into the promise of spring's surcease of winter. "How many snowflakes does it take to make a snowman?"

Unbidden. Unwelcome, the thought planted itself and grew into a colossal white figure complete with top hat and red scarf, carrot nose and raisin eyes all within a blink of my mind's eye.

"How many snowflakes does it take to make a snowman?"

I mean really. Here I am attempting to connect with Oneness and visions of snowmen float into my head in icy formation. What the Ohm am I thinking about?

There was to be no respite from the thoughts chilling persistence. It was a question seeking missile searching for a heat source.

With crystal like precision, the first question gave rise to the next -- 'cause that's the thing about really good questions, there's always the next one lurking in the wings, waiting for the breath of nonsense to give rise to its vapors.

"If every snowflake is different, when the snowman melts is every drop of water different too?"

Needless to say, peace of mind froze on the wing of my prayers as my meditation practice cavorted off into deeper pondering of life's snowy meaning as quickly as a Tibetan bowl ring dissipating into silence. I was stuck in a blinding snowstorm of thought and lost the trail of my thinking on the original seed of my meditation practice this morning.

Compassion.

Because that was my original intent. To meditate on the word compassion and let the Universe have its way on the landscape of my mind. That vast (and hopefully empty) space where there are no footprints in the snow. And no snowmen on the horizon.

And there I was lost. Bereft. Building snowmen in the sky. Searching for a spring thaw to ease me back to mindfulness.

And then, like King Wencelaus looking out on the feast of Stephen and spying a poor man in the frost so cruel, the Universe took compassion upon my meanderings and drew me to its loving hearth.

Snow melts. The earth is watered. Grass springs up.

That's it! That's compassion.

Giving of one's life to give life to another.

See, that's not that far off from counting snowflakes.

And it definitely brings me full circle back to the source of what gives my life beauty today.

Compassion.

And it is all because of my friend.

She is one of the most loving and compassionate people I know. Once upon a time I hurt her deeply. Betrayed her trust. Abused her friendship. To pay me back, she saved my life.

That's compassion.

She saved my daughters too. Gave my eldest daughter a safe haven when the winds of home grew too fierce for her to withstand their onslaught and I was far away and lost.

Gave a home to a runaway teen whose mother had kicked her out because her sexual sway was too far off the mother's beaten path.

Gave a home to my youngest daughter too when I came back and had nowhere else to be with my girls.

Gave a home to a young European girl here on an exchange when she too could not abide where she had been dictated to be.

And continues to give a home in her heart to those who have lost their way.

That's my friend. Compassionate heart giving without thought of receiving.

I've cried tears with this friend. Buckets full. And together, we've watered the seeds of forgiveness and love in the ocean of her compassionate heart.

Recently, in an email she wrote, "Gee, the pavement feels remarkably comfortable. Just let me lie here and think a bit."

It is what makes her compassion so vital. Her ability to gently laugh at her own predicaments and find the humour in every situation.

Like the time we hid out in her powder room while the man who promised to love me 'til death do us part and was trying to break into her house to finish off what we feared would be the end part of his promise.

"Damn," she whispered as she stood beside me behind the closed door where I lay on the floor peering out beneath the crack to see if he was having any luck getting through her patio door. "If only we'd remembered the playing cards. We could have played Gin Rummy."

Excuse me? There I was lying on the floor worrying about dust bunnies rising up my nose and a mad man breaking down her door and she was thinking about playing cards... I mean really.

And there's that 'in loving compassion' thing again.

Her humour diffused a perilous moment and sent us into gales of laughter. Two grown women hiding out in a powder room from a man who couldn't hold a candle to the power of our thinking and ability to take action that would send him back to where he'd come from, which on that day happened to have been jail.

We laughed about that day in years to come. Laughed and cried and agreed. Love is more powerful than fear. And compassion has the power to soothe an aching heart, not to mention the essential balm to ease a crying jag.

My friend, the one who is currently lying on familiar ground thinking, she has taught me what it means to give without thought of getting.

She has shown me what it means to stand steadfast in the winds of adversity. To stand true to your beliefs and values in the face of betrayal.

She saved my life once. It's time for me to repay the gift and share with her what she gives so freely and effortlessly.

Love and understanding.

Tenderness and care.

Kindness and compassion.

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Compassion is today's prompt word over at the Blog Carnival sponsored by Bridget Chumbley at One Word at a Time and Peter Pollock of Rediscovering the Church.

To read all the exiting and entertaining and inspiring posts hop on over to Bridget's place. There you'll find a list of links to all of the contributions, posted throughout today and often through to the end of the week.

Controlling my state of being.

The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law. (Galatians 5:22)

I read the theme for this week's Blog Carnival and thought, maybe I can miss it. Maybe I can be too busy? Perhaps on Tuesday I'll have a funeral to attend, Or a root canal booked. Perhaps, I'll give myself a break. I just won't do it. No excuses. No reason. Just because... I choose not to.

Self-control.

That's the word prompt.

Self-control.

I exercised it recently. Just last evening. Took Ellie for a walk. It was a picture perfect early spring evening. The river flowed in the valley bottom. We walked high up on the ridge. The wind rustled through the grasses, telling stories of places far away, of where it's been and how it's going to pass along the secrets of other times.

I walked along the trail that edges the ridge and Ellie meandered amidst the grasses.

Above a wedge of swans passed over. I looked up. Looked through the ethereal white of their wings. Whispered edges. Blue sky streaming into infinity. I listened to their honks. Joyful. Gleeful. Filled with delight. Necks craned forward, they flew, delicate tapestry of wings whirring in the air. They flew and honked and I stood beneath them, neck craned upward, staring up into their beauty. Entranced. To the south, a lone swan honked. Plaintive. Complaining. He furiously flapped its wings. "Wait for me. Wait for me." he cried, wings flapping as he flew, closer and closer, cutting the wedge off as it arced towards him. Relieved, his plaintiff cry turned joyful as he added his honk to the caucus of the bevy.

Exercise in self-control.

I wanted to scramble down the ridge to the valley bottom. I wanted to meander through the woods, let Ellie race into the water. I wanted to linger in the evening glow of dusk settling.

It was too late. Too much at risk wandering through the woods at night. Coyote. Cougar. Bear. They frequent this river valley too. Man as well.

Time to turn back.

Ellie looked longingly at the river below. I turned back. Turned towards the beaten path. Another time, I told her. We'll start out earlier in the evening.

I paused to savour the view. I glanced west towards the gold and crimson, violet and indigo hues of the setting sun.

I breathed deeply.

Self-control.

Once, I feared losing control. Feared being out of control and got so far on the other side of my control, I could not control my self.

I let go. Let loose. Unhooked. Untethered my connections.

Out of control I lost all sense of direction, all knowing of my self.

And then I found myself on the other side of the darkness. Found myself in that place where to control my self, all I needed was to remember, that was then, this is now.

This is now.

Self-control.

I imagine a car. A fast little sports car. The smell of leather. Wooden panels. Gleaming lights on console. Tight space. Bucket seat contoured snugly around my body. Hand warm on the knob of the gearshift. Cool, smooth wood. Foot on accelerator. Foot pressed into clutch. I ease up on the clutch. Ease into speed. Smoothly.Deftly. Change gear. Speed up. Feel the road beneath me. Feel the car hugging the pavement. Leaning into the curve. Speed up. In control. Shift gears. Faster. Faster. Shifting gears. Eyes on the road.

In control.

I cannot help myself, my eldest daughter once proclaimed after a particularly dramatic outburst involving her sister, a borrowed sweater and a missing button.

If you can't help yourself, I asked. Who can?

To control my life is to give up all need to be in control. To lean into what's happening around me is to let go of all control of the world outside me as I shift into gear my inner being, my inner knowing. I am exercising self-control when I give up giving into my fear that the world around me is out of my control.

It is.

I didn't go to the river's bottom last night. I exercised self-control. It is a muscle I am learning to control so that my world does not drive itself out of control. Last night, I pulled back before I journeyed into the darkness of the forest. Before I felt the cool of night edging at my peace of mind.

I told myself I didn't need to slip into the darkness. I didn't need to exercise my will to defy my self-control. I only needed to surrender and fall into that place where I am at one with my world, no matter its condition, no matter my state of being. That place where I know, all is well with my soul. I am safe in God's embrace.

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It's another Blog Carnival Tuesday, sponsored by Bridget Chumbley of One Word at a Time and Peter Pollock of Rediscovering the Church.

No matter that the theme awoke my trepidation of venturing into that place where I feared the need to examine self-control, it is a wonderful day!

The Blog Carnival is a biweekly online event open to anyone. Participants are invited to write an essay on a one-word prompt or topic. This week's is "self-control".

Click here to become immersed in what other's have written on the power of self-control. I promise, you will be enlightened!

Love is... ( a poem)

Today's word over on Peter Pollock and Bridget Chumbley's , Blog Carnival is: Love.

Four letters. Big word. Big emotion. Big question?

It has been called a 'many splendoured thing'. A tempest in a teapot. A curse. An albatross. A gift.

Love is not a thing. A noun. An object.

Love is a verb. An action. A feeling. A bigger than a breadbox kind of emotion that sweeps you away on wings of joy or leaves you pining on a carpet of grief.

Love is...

A movie.
A Many Splendored Thing
... the only Solution
... a Crazy Thing
It's all about Love

...A book to be read.

Eat. Love. Pray.
Love Walked In
What Remains: A Memoir of Fate, Friendship and Love

...A question to sing about

Will You Love Me Tomorrow?
What's Love Got To Do With It?
Can you Feel The Love Tonight?

...A song.

I Just Called To Say I Love You
A Groovy Kind of Love
You Always Hurt The One You Love

Love is...

...a mystery

Do You Know
How Deep Is Your Love?

Why Do Fools Fall In Love?

I Want To Know What Love Is.
...even while
I Can't Help Falling In love
...and you
Can't Buy Me Love.
...because
Love Will Keep Us Together.
...even when
You've Lost That Loving Feeling
...And I am
Taking A Chance on Love
...truth is
You Can't Hurry Love
...because
Love Takes Time
...and
I Just Can't Stop Loving You
...because I know
All You Need Is Love
...and we can't live
In a World Without Love
...so please
Don't Throw Our Love Away
...because
I'm Saving All My Love for You.
Long Live Love.
We give. We get. We talk about loving. Being loved. Lovable. Lovely. Love lost. Love forlorn. Love sick.

Yet, Love has no boundaries. No limits. No weight. No colour. No texture. No substance. No visible signs that it exists.

Yet, we all know it.

Feel it.

Sense it.

Want it.

Need it.

Give it.

Take it.

Keep it.

Release it.

Do You Love Me?

Don't You Love Me Anymore?

Where Did Our Love Go?

Love

Actually.

is

All you need

is

Love.

Love. Four little letters that evoke a tidal wave of thoughts, of images, of emotions. Of words tumbling out in their desire to be heard, to be seen, to be loved.

Love.

In love, anger abates. Darkness recedes. Anxiety grows dimmer.

Love drowns out fear. Love casts light on darkness. Love overcomes all.

No matter where I stand.

No matter what I read.

Or see.

Or hear.

Love conquers all.

Love Is...
All Around.