Arts

Writing, typing, photos, videos, sound recording, web pages, email, text messages - those are eight tools to convey who I am or you are.  I have seen places that have maybe attempted to eliminate the name of the writer, typist, photographer, videographer, recorder, web page author, emailer, text author.  But somebody somewhere created such records and that person's judgment, attention, tastes, intentions often matter.

Visiting Gallery Q on Main Street in Stevens Point is a good way to see work in other arts.  Painting, woodworking, jewelry, photography, pottery, weaving, basketry are excellent sources of beauty and awakening but speech and writing are too.  The history of writing and of reading and literacy can be fascinating and eye-opening as to what and who humans are.

CNN Photos of the week 6/29/2025

https://www.cnn.com/2025/06/26/world/gallery/photos-this-week-june-19-june-26

My poor hearing

I can usually tell that a person is talking but I often cannot make out what exactly is said.  I am getting a bit fed up with this problem and have started trying to improve my understanding of options and treatments. This morning I found a TED talk by Juliette Sterkens, an audiologist who gave a talk I attended.

Susan Jeffers, Ezra Bayda

I like Amazon ebooks and I have many of them.  They tend to be inexpensive and arrive, ready to use seconds after I order them.  They are basically weightless and take up basically no space.  But, many excellent and helpful books are not available in that format.

Two such books that I am slowly reading in paperback form are "Opening Our Hearts to Men" by Susan Jeffers and "At Home in the Muddy Water" by Ezra Bayda.  I have found that readers enjoy and benefit from book suggestions.

Susan Jeffers died in 2012 but her books and common sense live on.  I read her book "Feel the Fear and Do It Anyway" way back, during my undergraduate years of college.  "Opening Our Hearts to Men" tends to show me the female and male sides of life very nicely, brilliantly.

Ezra Bayda is a counselor and Zen teacher.  His book "At Home in the Muddy Water" refers to the Zen idea that the lotus plant has a lovely form despite having to grow in muddy water.  The plant is a good model for those of us working on our ability to see difficulties as valuable parts of life.

What goes on right in my back yard

I had a friend who was an earthworm.  He was going along one day minding his own business when a beak suddenly came through the soil above him.  Scooped him right up!  Never seen again!

We got babies being made right in front of our eyes!  Theft!  Immorality!  Deception!

You wouldn't believe it.

Prions

I went to the doctor yesterday and learned about prions.  The internet says they are small, misfolded proteins, that they are not alive but can get other proteins to similarly misfold. I read they are too small to see individually but that a clump of them can be seen with a good electron microscope.  The doctor, a dermatologist, was remarking in response to my statement that I understood that the existence of viruses had only been known since the end of the 1800's, mostly because they are so small.  The doctor said that prions are much smaller and were only known since the 1980's.

All of this was incidental to the visit, which was to have a bubble-like growth on the tip of my ear and a crusty spot on my forehead removed. 

How it is doing

We planted a nice drop-more honeysuckle vine with trumpet shaped flowers, just right for hummingbirds.  We put a large brass trellis right against the dining room window so we have seen many hummingbirds as they drink nectar.  Over the years, various songbirds looked over the site.  It is sheltered by the wall and by the house overhang.  Why not build a nest in the vine?

The reason is that the plant is not all that stable.  Nests can tumble out and have.  It can tilt and drop eggs to smash below and has.  We learned to be on the lookout for exploring birds and shoo them away.  Actions by birds and maybe by us attracted chipmunks, who at first lapped up cracked eggs but ate the blossoms.  Now all those nice blossoms are gone. As Paula Poundstone says, we can't have anything nice.