Recording Your Choices

I've spent quite a bit of time learning to decipher the I Ching, and using it to decipher my intentions...since I was 12. When I was in my twenties, I decided to keep a journal over the years and ask the I Ching every time I made a major life decision. In the beginning I had NO idea what the symbols were saying of course. But just by writing the questions down, a very consistent "catalogue" of what questions I had asked emerged over time - with the corresponding answers. Strangely enough, some of the questions and corresponding answers from the coin tosses were EXACTLY the same, even when the same reoccuring question was asked over a period of years.

I still keep that journal of questions, and add to it.

So eventually I learned quite a bit about what this Chinese symbolic language meant, because the book helped me remember what I tried last time I got that same symbolic answer. Trying something else in the now similar situation gave me another option to try out. I could recognize that this was a similar situation from getting a similar answer from the I Ching the last time it came up in my life. Otherwise I would have never noticed any similarities because too much time had passed in between what turned out to be very similar, virtual questions. I would have never connected the
two circumstances if I hadn't had the I Ching to draw the parallel.

So literally, the dangerous Hexagram # 29 says to "Be like water, follow your true nature to emerge from the ravine." What I found that meant to me was much more practical. It meant that I'd already imagined in the past about what I was going to do in this rather precarious situation, so I'd better not change my mind now about it. Make a new decision about how to proceed when I'm out of the danger, not when I'm in it. Not bad advice, under those circumstances, no matter what the means of getting the advice.

Fixing for Tammy

here's the second picture of another blue screen that happened after the first driver installation...

Why Give Ideas A Form?

I realize that this is what makes me an artist - instead of purely an intellectual. In Dialogue we like to find out our assumptions. This seems to be one of my core operanting assumptions.

Articulating an idea's practical manifestation seems to be important to me, as if finding the "proof" of an idea would be to a scientist. I regard talking about something to be just the first part of that. Thus, I'm writing this down rather than purely talking about it. I'm concerned that an idea can stop at talk and be lost. I want ideas to go farther into being something more real - more expressed.

Sometimes people misunderstand when they hear me being too surface or too literal in the way I talk. People who like ideas often don't get why I think it's so important to be practical and literal. I often talk about examples in the form of the teensy manifestations rather than the big extremes that most people use. I don't like implied opposing extremes because the world rarely presents choices in black and white.

For me, unless the "talking" is actually "walking" in some form, however miniscule, it's not enough to just say it. I imagine that the idea must have a discipline, a practice, an expression, an art to make the ideas & intentions, etc. come into being. For me, an idea isn't all the way real until it's a book, a painting, a poem, a movement, a dialogue, etc. These, of course, can be taken to various levels of actualization.

My experience with practicality and it's expressions are different from other people's, because I see complex principles in my basic, simple actions that other people don't know about. To them simple actions don't have these cosmic expanded meanings that they do for me - mostly because they don't practice Alexander Technique. For me, almost any simple physical choice of how to move is a microcosm of expressing powerful, potential phenomenal change. To most other people, moving it's just a stupid automatic thing that they don't think much about.

In my past I hung out with a few people who never did anything but talk about what they could do or planned to do or might do. I also saw myself talking without doing anything and it distressed me. So I became disillusioned that talk maybe is a way of dissipating energy or entertaining oneself rather than the first part of moving, creating, planning or preparation. That's why when I talk, I try to talk about what actual manifestations are real for me directly. What is really present in experience gives the best examples. People experience, but they don't think about much of what their experience means and how they can use it in other situations. It seems that most people haven't experienced these common situations the way I do - or at least, they're not motivated to write about them as I am.

For me the practical outer leads directly to the inner states. It's one of my assumptions that I hold so dear that I can't imagine other people might not share recognition of it's importance. So for me to "evoke" a state, I find that it works better for me to "do something" physical to get a goal - as opposed to thinking or talking. That doing can be to "do nothing" so something new can happen. For me the doing of something is a means to express the intention directly; without the practical, physical doing part the intention is easily lost. Lost because it's been interrupted by not being carried into action.

Recognition

How would a person recognize for their own benefit a larger important change or fulfilment that may be taking place moment-by-moment? This skill seems to be related to the ability to select important points that is most commonly used in today's culture as the ability to tell an interesting story. For instance, a movie will be made up of important scenes that drive the storytelling forward.

How would a person gain the skill of correcting for time of arrival for the important pieces of the puzzle that could be creating personal meanings? It's curious how some people feel they must tell each detail of their experience blow-by-blow., while others seem to possess the ability to select for important points that stand out and make personal meaning universal, artistic and fascinating.

I'm interested in how and why this can happen. It's probably in the brain, the way we're wired. Certainly the ability could be practiced and/or learned, as I have come to learn it myself. I used to be a blow-by-blow storyteller, and now I'm not - ah, at least I think I'm not as much as I used to be.

It seems to me that human moment-to-moment ability to recognize change isn't very precise. In some people, their sensory ability only feels differences that are significant - and notable as determined by the person experiencing it. In others, the sequence is paramount, and they can't do it any other way.

Significance that is gradual, (change that happens over time) doesn't seem to register very well on the sensory system. Meaning or specialness seems to be determined by the relative sensitivity of the person experiencing it. Also a factor seems to be how "jaded" a person has become to sensory information.

F.M. Alexander used to call this phenomena of "jadedness" debauchery - which to him described how the usage of a habit encourages a dulling and eventual shut down of sensory discriminatory ability. This was an old word that has fallen out of modern usage that was used to describe someone who has lost all joy of life and has descended into bitterness, sarcasm and possibly, addiction. Modern researchers today term the same principle in the field of behaviorism "sensory adaptation."

Perhaps jadedness and unreliability depends on how many habits someone has trained themselves to deal with that are suffering from a lack of being sensed. Opposing habitual directives seem to flood or shut down the system. Of course, the more habitual and automatic the programs in place that have been trained over time, the less new sensory information is actually available to be sensed. That must be how the dulling process happens; if frogs can die without noticing it's just getting a little bit hotter in the eventually boiling pot - why should humans be that much different?

Five Year Old Dreams

I love dreaming while I sleep and remembering them is a wonderful gift. Also, I love science fiction and fantasy my whole life. These two interests have been going on for a long, long time for me.

Since it's my birthday, I thought you might like to read something from my distant past. Here is a dream I had when I was only a little girl:

When I was almost five I had a very prolonged fever that made my parents very worried. As I was lying there half sleeping and half out of it, I had a fever dream. My parents thought the dream was "imaginative."

In the dream there were two discorporated beings who escorted me - (I understood even then knew when I was dreaming and not and figured they were dream-ghosts.) These ghosts told me they could take me to view the Seven Wonders in another galaxy, beyond compare of the Seven Wonders of earth, (which I had heard of.) So we flew off together.

waldo tunnel As I went with them, I flew up out of my room, viewing it from the top, my neighborhood, my town, my continent, my world, my solar system. When we got so I could see the earth and before we got to Jupiter, we winked out together. Instantaneously we appeared at their galaxy, where the process repeated in reverse. Remember that in those days, (1959/60 - I don't remember the exact date of the dream) there were no computer graphics depicting such a thing. So these views in the dream were quite spectacular and very memorable.

The strangest thing that I remembered when we arrived on their world was now how they looked. They appeared to be a cross between a praying mantis, grasshopper & beetle, though not identical in structure - meaning there may have been different insect "races."

When I looked down at myself, I looked to me the way I always appeared. This changed when one of them wanted to communicate or view me. To do this, they rubbed a part of their rather insect-looking anatomy together to "beam" a shaping light at me. Later I thought of it as a sonar beam that is sent out to bounce off and is sent back to the sender, (though I did not know what sonar was at that young age.)

The unexpected phenomena is that the beam was a "projection" - the sender shaped what they saw. I could look at myself bathed by the beam, look at myself and see them imagining that I was an insect similar to them. Different people projected different views on me. In fact, one of their artistic mediums was an event where one of them would manipulate the views that many people "beamed" at the same person on a stage.

I was entertained as if I was an ambassador from earth. They showed me their architecture, their churches, their dance, painting & music - which would probably make this post REALLY long if I described in the detail how I still remember. Of course each was truly a wonder because I had never imagined any of it before, and visiting them all only took a small amount of time because everyone, including myself, could fly.

They also were looking for an ambassador from their world to send to earth. They told me that they wanted their ambassador to have a body on earth, or at least that's how I understood it at the time. They asked me if it was all right to use me for that. I remember that I said that was OK, but when I woke up from the dream....I didn't feel any different.

Cool dream, huh? The only difference I notice now is I do seem to prefer a 26 hour sleeping cycle. ;o)

Timeless Time

I notice that it is when I'm "purposeless" that I often have the most creative intuitive flashes. It's when nothing counts that can often solve the purposeful problems I'm having to deal with at other times of my life, be they current concerns or ways of regarding my past experiences. So I've learned that intentionally making time to "suspend time" as a quite useful and enjoyable experience, aside from the value of doing it in the moment. A time when time is suspended, a timeless time.

I don't quite understand the inability of some people to "do nothing" for an extended period of time or an hour. In fact, I deliberately make about six months of the year to be my time for "doing as little as possible." Obviously, I'm really skilled at "doing nothing." Perhaps I should teach it as an art form; I'm sure other people have already written books about it extensively.
I imagine that people used to spend quite a lot more "timeless time" and that now everyone in my culture is going towards some important purpose ever faster.

Sometimes when I'm in a pessimistic mood I think that my culture's collective purpose of humanity expressed as "Manifest Destiny" is sort of like a rather large human pestilence on the earth. Gaia has to shake off humans from time to time in the form of some polar shift or eventual nuclear destruction.

Respect & How I Offer It

Generally psychologists hold the opinion that you have to have a self before you have a supposedly healthy relationship. I don't think that a sense of self is necessary to having a relationship really, and lots of Hispanics, Chinese and India Indians agree with you - how can 4 billion people be wrong?

But the common psychological opinion in our culture (of the self being indispensible to a good relationship) addresses responsibility & respect. Otherwise people tend to get very blurry about what is their responsibility and what is their partner's. The problem is who should be responsible for changing something that makes one of them uncomfortable?

If it's done with an undifferentiated self, both of them perhaps must get very good at questioning each of their collective assumptions and sorting out how to alter them so change is possible...or perhaps one person can "do for" the other as a sort of compensation. But SHOULD you change the other person for whatever reason? How does one person "know best" what is best for both or for the whole the family? The same way that how does a person know what is best for themselves if that self includes parts of themselves they don't want know about?

I wonder how this responsibility/respect issue could be articulated and addressed artfully?

Otherwise each person tends to try to "fix" the situation as if that other person were themselves They do it to make the other person "do better" the way they would make themselves "do better." Sometimes their means defeat the intentions...as it does for them!

So when someone has a sense of self and they know their own limitations - they get a better idea what to "leave alone" that is the other person's business. Someone close to me is struggling, sometimes it's difficult to allow them to struggle, but how else will they change? I always think, if I "do for" them now, how will it affect my relationship with them in the long run?

Also when you are very close, whatever bothers someone will bother you unless you know where you start and they end. - Again, there may be another way, but I have always solved that problem with a sense of assigning a boundary and a "leave alone" attitude. I'm willing to do quite a lot for someone else who I consider to be my "family member." But sometimes I stop myself, because I wonder if what I'm about to do for them will be of any real use to them.

For instance, I probably know how to "teach" someone more than they know now how to imagine spatially. People have mentioned that they have learned a little of it just being around me. I don't think that I can help but share with my friends how I "see" with my artist's eye in the context of whatever I notice, so that's how they've been picking it up.

But what if I were to make suggestions to "on purpose train" that sense in that person without them realizing that I had the intention to communicate the benefit of my spacial experience? They wouldn't know what I was doing - and would probably resist my efforts.

I would not do that unless I had their permission and interest in the moment. At least, that's what I did when I was in a "blended undefined self" relationship in the past. Without my "sense of self," I'd be doing that "training" all the time to bring my "other part" (in this case, the
undifferentiated self-less other body) up to speed. I hate thinking of someone as my "other half." It's just that it's got to be such an erroneous assumption that anyone could be "just like me." Always at the first part of a relationship, people notice how much they are similar to the other; as the relationship goes on people notice how different they are. Then, when it goes on a long time, people often completely switch places and offer the complaints that they used to hear from the other person!

The same with Alexander Technique - there is a way of teaching AT where I would just prevent you from moving down on yourself for an extended period of time, as long as you could "handle." Essentially, I'd be "training" your body to put up with not doing your habit as long as you could tolerate being without it. It's a very interesting experience, sustaining the refusal of habit, but very strange and wierd.

I am capable, I am game but I don't push it on other people. After I've given my friends a taste of it, I'll only give more when they ask again. That's part of my idea of respect.

Fugue Dreaming the Stroop Effect

At one point when I was about 15, in 1971 (and not on any drugs,) I dreamed (while sleeping) something like the link below that you can try. This little optical illusion game is quite an experience.

In this dream I was watching a movie like "Fantasia," when I discovered that my thought could affect what was on the screen of the movie. Since I was an artist at the time, I began to think color, and I found that sploooshes of color effectively danced across the screen in the direction of my thinking. As I began to play with it, I somehow entered into the movie itself, where the screen was all around me, like Mary Poppins jumping into the chalk painting.

After playing for awhile with color in buckets of thought, I began to shape color into specific words as I had been doing in my paintings; and of course, I used the names for colors, being
a literate artist. However while I was playing with it, I made some words the words of colors that did not match the color they actually were, such as Chartruese always seemed to be to me a pink word rather than the limey green it's really supposed to be. I got a little confused there...the sort of confusion you 'll experience soon if you go to that link below...

So, I decided to switch my attention to the music. While this confusion about colors was going on I began to attend to how I could make my thought influence the music track also; with seven notes on the scale and seven main colors in my palate, I began to control the light or dark of the color with the high or low octaves of sound, and the saturation was controlled by the loudness; the hue by the interval, etc. However, soon there were complex chords with sounds that I could not assign to a color combination...

It all was a marvelous experience, but soon, like the poor little apprentice in Fantasia who learned to start the spell for the brooms but didn't know how to make them stop, it became a little too overwhelming and the effect of it all drove me out of my verbal mind.

In my case, this dream made me so completely pre-verbal that I could not thinkg of any word when I woke up; except after I gropped along the wall and found the light I discovered that I could count in Spanish. It was a little frightening, but it seemed temporary. After I waited about fifteen minutes, I could have thoughts in words again.

Then I went out the next day at art class in school and painted these words that I had dreamed in different colors, different from what they said. When I had people name them by their colors and not what they said, they had trouble doing it as I did and it made them laugh. I thought, "Good, at least I'm not crazy then."

You too can put yourself into this state! Well, maybe not as well as I could. Someone else discovered the same effect and they had a PhD and I didn't so it was named after them and not me.

It gets pretty tricky when you realize you are reading the name of the last color you named, but it's a different color now and now you still have to think of the color you're seeing and now it's a different color and you're not getting your prain (poor brain) and mouth to work that fast. I'm curious to hear when, or with how much practice or if people can get through the whole twelve without flinching.

If this link goes away for some reason in the distant future, you can search for the "Stroop Effect."http://xrl.us/njf8
(This link points to the website of www.colourtherapyhealing.com)

Possessiveness

I'm visiting a friend of mine, seeing other friends while I'm visiting her. So I'm thinking about possessiveness and who gets to see me and who doesn't, because my time is not open ended right now.

In the course of a relationship I have noticed there is always inherent ongoing question of whose needs come first and who must wait - and for how long - do they get exactly what they want or do they get a diluted version? In the long run for the relationship to continue, both people have to be happy about how it works out.

It seems that I won't put up with a partner/friend who limits or "fields" who else I can have as a friend - or even determine or limit how often/when I want to see that friend. But that's been my opinion for myself for some time because I have so many different friends.

I find when I'm with someone else means I'm willing to follow them around - if only to see how they do what they do. I'm pretty patient at waiting and able to amuse myself, so it's only somewhere down the road that it occurs to me that I'm waiting too much for the other person to allow me to do what I want to do. I don't know if people can avoid negotiating what they are going to do next together.

I notice how negotiation of how much time is required for notice of desires ("how could you change your mind now?") can be used as an excuse to not grant desires. Desires happen when they do and they must be accommodated for both people in a relationship. Changing my behavior to accommodate someone else's possessiveness of my time (or the wasting of it by interpreting my patience as a disappeared need) seems to be too much of a compromise on my part.

I wonder if it's a dynamic that seems to encourage that someone to make more demands on me, while my needs/desires must wait. I can speak up, but I think that voicing something once or twice should remind them that my needs exist. After that I seem to have the urge to go off on my own to satisfy myself, because dealing with satisfying them and myself at the same or alternate times is not happening.

I think withdrawing support in helping someone fulfill their desires when you could participate in something else should mean you bear the brunt of leaving yourself out and not make them "pay." Many people believe that their choices are your fault because they took your wishes into account! There's many reasons not to be a wet blanket on your partner's/friend's fun, least of all trust. But I think it's a little like revenge to have someone blame you for something awful happened when the two of you chose to go into an experience together than neither of you could forsee. Now, if I claimed I could forsee the future, then...

I've had friends that my former partners didn't enjoy and visa versa - but we didn't limit our time with them or our support of getting to see them, even when it involved significant travel costs and time spent away from extensive responsibilities. It made us happy to continue (and make new) friendships because it gave us new stimulation to think & talk about. In a way we trusted the urge to expand into the world to be a positive thing.

I'm not so sure why this topic of possessiveness seems to "get me going." But it definitely hits a nerve in me when I am somehow involved, I seem to rebel toward "freedom" at any cost, after a certain self-determined waiting period. What do other people here think or do about it when someone else close to them tries to limit their contact with others?

A Little Awareness is a Nuisance

My sensitivity to optional choices seems to expand the more my sensitivity and awareness expands. Because of this phenomena, prioritizing has often been agonizing. I'll often allow the situation to suggest what would be best for me and I can see what is best for others much easier than what is best for myself. So I attempt to apply the same standards for myself. Standards seem to go up as sensitivity increases, so I find that my transcendant goals and ideals never arrive - which translates to, "where is my thriving practice of Alexander Technique students?"

I'm thinking that even saints were not aware enough of their own assumptions and how to balance their many conflicting needs. I wonder if that's not what "wise men" had in mind by keeping their knowledge deliberately obscure. Although I admit that it sounds more as if it is one good justification to keep secrets, period. More likely the secretiveness had to do with "rarifying" the information, so that people appreciated it rather than taking the wisdom for granted. In modern life, this translates to charging a great deal of money for your work so people sit up and pay attention about the value of it. Somehow, this charging lots of money thing turns my stomach and I'm not sure why. So many people taught me Alexander Technique for free, but I guess I paid many times over by talking it up to get them more students and making AT more well known.

It is true that once you open the pandora's box of the awareness of oneself that there is no going back to blissful ignorance. So it is a question of what is better in the longrun. It is often worse in the short run to have gained a little awareness of oneself without any knowledge or example of what to do with the new information.

What I imply when I apologize like this is a little irony about my situation of choosing to be poor and to serve my community. I know this act of apologizing makes me often culturally misunderstood. I know that because I'm entertained by so little in life and I am so resourceful, it means I'm much less motivated to "put off" some sort of reward and work towards something that will hopefully occur some time in the future. I understand that this is directly opposite what most people consider to be reasonable adult life. It's served my happiness quotient very well, but I'm not sure what it's doing for my retirement! I guess I'm going to continue to work and never retire, as I have done all my life. I tell people that, "If I make it to being an old lady, I'm working on being a really nice person so other people want to be around me!"

Volunteer Poverty Experiment

One time I was deeply troubled that the idea that my self image was connected to how much money that I did or didn't have. So I decided this idea was to be one that I wanted to explore first hand by making myself destitute, volunteer poverty style. I found that when I was destitute in a place where I had lived for twenty plus years, people I knew just took care of me. Since that part of the experiment didn't seem to really work, I made myself destitute in another place where nobody knew me. Same result; new people appeared who would feed me and take an interest in my situation. One of them even gave me a huge chunk of money because they thought I should have it, stressing that some victimhood of the past made me deserve being singled out to recieve thousands of dollars that they gave me. How very odd.

So from these experiments I surmised that, unless I just wanted to stop eating and delibrately refuse to seek food, I was never going to starve. Obviously, it's easier being a destitute person in a rich area than in a poor one. In a rich areas, more people are just throwing away free stuff if you can think of something to do with it. I observed since I seem to live off of what others toss out or ignore, it was of more benefit for me to live in areas where there were more resources of that kind.

Somehow my experiment in volunteer poverty during these times have given me a tremendous sense of freedom. It gave me something near to identifying with how little the third world lives. It freed me to understand how happy I could be with pretty much nothing. It satisfied me somehow, gave me this sense that beyond money is a definition of myself-hood. It also made me feel bottom-line secure, with a huge rainbow of possibility between poverty (as defined by most people where I live) and the bottom line of what I actually, really need. This experiment led me to redefine "what do I really need" in practical, innovating ways. It has served me ever since. I'm living now in some socially defined "poverty" state, but feeling very, very rich with the time & ability to travel and exercise some of my creative possibilities.

That Guy in NY

The recording light is on
I’m seeing from your eyes
a moving x-ray inside your body too.
Your sweat smells like mine.
Our connectors sprout out
cords from skill to art
fitting into strangely shaped
synaptic swirls of
improbable possibility.
The sound of your voice shows me.
The empty places between words
Where your pathways are on fire,
a maze chess game, but
you’re not a traditional player.
Now you can follow me.
I could heal you
if you would let me
unsettle you.

Adventures in the UK & Finland

I know I promised an update on my adventures in the UK so here it is...I'll continue with my adventures since I left Odense, Denmark on my way to Finland.

Even though I had my choice of Stockholm or Copenhagen, I chose a flight to the UK because an old aquaintance had an empty guestroom only during the first part of my trip. Once in London, it was a little tricky to work the pay phones with my phonecard numbers, but it was more tricky to get in touch with my friend Dan.

Since I knew his neighborhood, I decided to get closer to where he lived as I continued to try his home number. This led me to the British Underground, which they call the "Tube" rather than the subway. Having just gotten off the squalid NY subways where I had my ukelele stolen, the tube was quite a contrast.

Inside the "real" British rail tube, the railings and seat handles were painted bright colors to contrast with the also brightly colored seats. I don't know if you remember an old TV series called "The Prisoner," but it was in a setting of a circusy, campy island where the protagonist was continually prevented from leaving. Straight from the old TV program an automated British woman's voice urged us all to, "Please, Stand Away from the Closing Doors."

At least I could leave when I wanted to, but finding directions gave me flashbacks to that same place because some people gave erroneous misleading ones. It was a little like being in a new video game that you hadn't yet figured out how to navigate. Eventually I walked over to my friend's house, and by then he was at home in his garden.

As anyone who has been to London knows, no street is at straight intersections with the neighboring streets. Getting around by following directions is very interesting, without a map. To amuse myself, I followed my dialogue friend Don Factor's suggestion to walk in any direction until I got tired...then figure out how to get back on the tube/rail or taxi. Later I realized that a bicyle map does the trick!

Don and his wife could easily become my old friends if I was in London awhile longer. Perhaps this impression came from how we had written to each other e-mail for so many years and were just picking up our conversation where we left off. I was quite impressed with the little stories Don had for what was in his livingroom. I was quite happy shopping in the swap meet/flea markets in London, but found better deals in Denmark. Had to send another package home to lighten my load a second time.

One day while I was in London, I got to spend in the archives of the newsletter that I do reviews for on Alexander Technique. I got to see some great old shots of F.M. Alexander...and read some of his old letters and ephemera. Evidently, the way people
wrote about the Alexander Technique changed quite a bit sometime in the 1980's. Maybe I can turn that into an article for that magazine later.

But by far the most interesting time I had to spend was with the people who had been on my Dialogue list for the last few years, but I had never met. Three of them were near London.

The first I got to meet was a character I know as "janoh", who lived in Gosport, across the bay from Portsmouth to the south. Jan O'Highway is a supporting artist who lives with her affectionate mum. Jan mainly works in tile. She showed me one of her ceramic installations in a nearby park commemorating the nearby historic businesses. She and I got along famously, we even made some art on her scanner.

She proudly showed me off to most of her friends and collegues in her studio building. One of these friends lived in Bath. She wanted me to meet Nick because he was a "lurker" on the Dialogue group. (Lurkers have membership but only read what other people write without contributing anything themselves.) Coincidentally enough, Nick knew some of my friends in Bolinas, and that wasn't the first time I was left with a "small world" feeling. The second time was when I met an old lover of Hawk's on the voyage from the UK to Denmark.

Bath was a historic area, where all of the new buildings have to conform to the look of 13th century stone. Nick walked with Janoh and I, being a wonderful tour guide. I just missed the Roman Baths being open after 25 years of refurbishments.

A memorable church facade had people going up Jacob's ladder. ...and then the designer had to find a way to illustrate angels descending so they were different from the mere mortals going up...so the sculptor oriented the angels upsidedown. The lush countryside and winding vistas looked very similar to Bolinas' countryside. Unfortunately for my red nose & eyes, there were also similar weeds blooming!

I got back to home base at my friend Dan & Fan's house in London and took lots of drugs to make myself stop sneezing. We all went out on the Thames River Tour and the Royal Botanical gardens, later I went to the Tate modern art museum. In between,
I played with their kids, Aidan, 5 & Niah, 2. I really enjoyed the kids & staying with the family, even though Aidan needed some education in the details of photography after he curiously opened up the back of my camera! Aidan has an impressive facility & patience for putting together quite complex Leggo toys far beyond his years, and the camera admittedly looked like a toy, so I couldn't blame him much. Aidan's mom Fan was quite impressed that Aidan got instruction from me in how photography works instead of slow and excruciating child torture.

Niah was one of the most self-possessed people I have ever met. We had quite a few involved philosophical talks about the nature of AI scripting. Evidently I made a deep impression on Niah, because she was very disappointed when her dad told her that I'd "gone home." I'll have to see her again soon to keep up the freshness of our correspondence, because she can't yet type or write to be in contact by e-mail.

When traveling, it's always a little tricky to negotiate how you are going to get to where you want to go. Finland was it, I was in Odense, Denmark when I last wrote you ...but how to get there? Checking, I knew I didn't have enough money to go through Sweden because it was booked up, so I settled on going around to Helsinki on a ferry that went from Rostock, Germany. I decided to use the old trick of inexpensively riding county busses to get myself from Odense to Rostock. It worked, except it got
late and I missed the timing for the free bus to get people across to the southern islands. So, I had to hitchhike those seven miles.

This time I had a good map, so I pulled out my long hair and stuck out my thumb. Evidently, even long dark blonde hair is very unusual in Denmark...that's why
people would talk to me in Danish so often. Maybe they want to see if my hair was real.

The guy who picked me up was very amusing, even though he didn't speak English very well. It was a good thing that I couldn't read Danish before I jumped in, because written on the side of his truck said he ran a sort of catered slaughtering
business! I had just left the vegetarian crowd that I fell in with in Odense and wondered what that coincidence meant. This guy had too much work all over Denmark slaughtering and butchering people's farm animals for them. During the hour we sat while waiting for the ferry to load his truck, he invited me to stay at his place in Danemare. Coincidentally, he had to drive near where the ferry at Rostock
left from the next morning - or maybe he decided to go in that direction just for me, I don't know.

The thing that convinced me it was safe to take him up on his offer was the way he asked me to get out of his truck to have dinner alone...so he could pick up his "mommy and grand-mommy" to give them a ride home. I knew he wasn't remembering his English very accurately, but it was so innocent talking with a grown man who would say "mommy" with a straight face. He had an old little dog named after a mouse that
I painted a watercolor portrait of, and luckily it came out looking like the dog in question. We had lots of fun talking with many hand gestures. Allon was very polite and the third person to offer me a place to stay longterm in Denmark, even showing me where he kept the key to his house. Later when I talked to another person who was fluent in English again...I was still waving my arms around while I talked simply... amazing how quickly I could adapt and how easy it is to set up new mannerisms.

So on the way to Tampere from Helsinki, I didn't have enough Euros to pay for the fare because the station had closed just as I arrived from the boat. Surprisingly, the conductor gave me the half portion of my ticket free. I couldn't tell if it happened because I flashed my debit card and large bills in two different currencies. I think it was late and the conductor was feeling generous. I was also talking to a soccer star whom he probably recognized!

Right now I'm in Tampere, Finland...visiting my good friend Outi for the last week. Tampere has been a wonderful place to feel at home and also ride out the many thunderstorms. In between the warm rain there have been windows of sun. So Outi has taken me for her favorite walks by the forest where she lives and walks her dog, Romie. Right now she is out gathering mushrooms and berries while I’m writing. The lakes have charming little docks and ladders for you to climb out of the water onto, even though the rest of the lake has been left natural.

Here's the lake in this photo...

Of course I had to experience a REAL Finnish sauna. The people who go to saunas here are really dedicated. They have these little loofa booties on, with strange little round white string hats. The slippers keep your feet from burning on the 140¤ C heat, & the hats are supposed to protect your hair. You sit on a little plywood piece that is cut out in the shape of a butt. When you feel cooked enough, you run out the
doors outside and down to the stairway that goes to the lake...and jump in the green murky water.
Surprisingly, the lake is pretty warm next to how you might imagine it, being glacier fed. I watched on the news how a glacier fell on a town in Italy. Guess global warming means a different thing to people who live next to glaciers.

Being with Outi, once a constant friend of mine, has been wonderful. I have never traveled in another country when I didn't know the language before...and it was quite an odd experience. I didn't realize how much of a stranger I felt until I came to be with a very familiar face. That must be why most people go home after a month of traveling

Now tommorrow I'm headed back on the ferries to Denmark where I'm going to perhaps visit Copenhagen and new adventures...so I'll write again when I have a chance to give you the next update...

Thanks again for your encouragement, enthusiasm and in many cases, indespensible practical support in helping me go on the voyage of my life!!!

I'm in Denmark!

Sorry this typeface is so small, but I can't change it if I want the special 
characters to show.

I arrived in western Denmark after a night crossing ferry 
ride.  Before it started raining, it was artistically interesting 
activity to stand in the upper decks and look at the people walking by 
from above. It was more like having a cruise-ship ride. The best part was 
coming into the harbor of Esbjerg - someone had made four monolithic 
statues to greet me.

While I was on my way to "Danmark," as the Danes spell it, I met a musician 
carrying lots of instruments. Turned out that he had been an ex-lover of a 
friend of mine in Bolinas - Hawk. This is the second time someone I have met 
has known someone from home! That always gives me the impression that I must 
be in the right place at the right time.



My first SERVAS visit with a "stranger" was in Vejle {"Vai-lay"} Mike had 
a very Danish voice that went up and down with expression. The cat who 
owned Mike had a purr that I couldn't begin to describe - louder than any 
cat I have ever heard by a factor of five!

Mike was originally from the UK, but had been in Denmark for 30 years, 
spending the last part of that teaching Danish to foreigners. So I had 
some interesting Danish lessons along with a wonderful talk about 
languages in general. The word I like
best is pronounced, as in huge, Hu-ga-leig. It means being happily 
secure, neat & comfy, relaxed.

Mike was quite a historian of the local area and had endless things 
to say about whatever I was curious about. Near his house, which was 
in the downtown area, we could walk up a paved over pedestrian street. 
An artist had put a light sculpture inside the pavement that was 
little buttons of sequenced light, especially nice
in the rain.

On this same walkway, people had been walking since the 1200s. A part 
of the street had been excavated and glassed over, as if you were 
looking through a hole in the street at it. Through this "window" level 
with the street you could see the original paving stones as the road 
had been in 1300. Runic letters had been carved into the stones. Mike 
explained that the level of the street had rise every time the buildings
were burnt down by the next invasion, so that's why the older sections 
are so much lower.

He took me on a walking tour with almost unendingly facinating details, 
ending by the new docks - which of course were much larger and farther 
out than the original Viking docks. I learned curious social customs 
and other details; on someone's birthday people put littl€ flags near 
the party.

What really proves I'm in Denmark nøw is the keyboærd I'´m using...
where else would I hæve symbøls like these? ¤¤¤¤  §§§§  åååå  ÅÅÅ 
€€€€€€€€ !

Well, got to pack to meet my SERVAS contact for dinner at the Vege 
restaurant in Odense - said "Ooh-den-say". I'll be able to write of 
more of the time that I spent in the UK later on - Odense has a 
free library computer for a whole hour!  

Ready, Steady, Cross the Pond!

Well, looks as if I really do get to go across the
“pond” to Europe after all.
There was a little scare when I called around looking
for an old address that I had for “Airhitch,” the
stand-by not-for-profit outfit that buys up the extra
seats on planes to get people like me to Europe for
cheap. Airhitch informed me that they only deal online
now, rather than having a fixed address. Whew! I didn't
have enough money to go if it wasn't for Airhitch prices.

I’m heading into NYC this Wednesday to stay with a
new friend of mine who lives in Manhattan. With some
luck, I may be on a flight as soon as Friday, but
I’m going on a really cheap standby routine, so I
have a “window“ of possible flights. Once I get on
a plane, first I’m heading to London to stay and
visit with friends and Alexander Technique collegues;
then I’m hopping on a “ferry”, (which is pretty much
a big cruise ship,) that goes from Harwich, UK to
“Esbjerg,“ on the west coast of Denmark. There I’m
going to start using a really cool hospitality
network known as “SERVAS” to get to know the
Danish people...as I have promised my Dad, who
was Danish.

We’ll see how long my money lasts...and if I can
make any more while I travel. I’m hoping to make
it across Denmark by local bus and hitchhiking.
My grandfather in Denmark was a “clerk” in Odense,
and my great grandfather was N.F.S Grudtvig, who
got a church built for him, but I guess I’ll find
out what all that means when I get there and
check it out.

Today I went sailing on one of the “finger”
lakes near Ithaca, NY as well as playing pool
nearby and even eating at the famous Moosewood
restaurant in Ithaca. I’ve been staying this last
two weeks with my long-time friend Diana Brown.
Besides her three daughters, she’s got two
dachshunds, eight kittens and three grown
cats...and 11 chickens. One of the dogs has
“adopted” one of the kittens as their own baby, so
cute that I had to snap a picture. Diana's house
is quite a zoo, but very fun to stay here because
she has a lifestyle very much like mine in the
way she earns her living. She’s been able to get
me some work striping boats and cutting out
patterns for signs. So far I have made a couple
hundred dollars, which has been wonderful help
to pay for my travels.

I’ve also stayed in Phoenicia, NY where Janet
& Tommy have moved to when I first arrived. J & T
have just moved into a beautiful, big house they
bought on a side street next to town - a 3 story,
5 bedroom with a heated garage, great yard in
perfect shape for only $120,000!

Phoenicia is very much like Bolinas, only much
cheaper to live in with more services and cheaper
restaurants ...even though there are only 800
people in town. The nearby urban area is only a
half hour away, and down the road is the world’s
largest kaleidoscope with the coolest store
selling them where you can play with everything
they sell. There’s a "tubin'" biz, & a church
thrift store that rivals the freebox in its great
deals and finds...only a dollar or two for a shirt,
pants, etc. I found the coolest socks - silk and
wool,  yum! (They lasted - still have 'em years
later!)

Anyhow, I’ll give more of a report on my adventures
once I get to Europe. Of course I’ll keep a journal
for you...