Camelot Journal of L/L Research

Blog Transfer Announcement, January 11, 2009

2009-01-11T17:41:00.003-05:00

As of January 1, 2009, the Camelot Journal of L/L Research moves to www.bring4th.org, the spiritual community and activism site of L/L Research. To view my Camelot Journal blog entries from now on, please go to http://www.bring4th.org/members.php?uid=72. The Avalon Journal will also be moved to B4 in the near future.

To view the archives of these Journals prior to 2009, please go to http://www.llresearch.org/carla_niche.aspx.

I thank the blogger.com site for hosting my blogs for the last three years and more! It has been commodious and comfortable here. However it is a great joy for all of us at L/L Research to see www.bring4th.org launched, and I encourage you to hop on over and check out the site. You can join us to blog, use the forums and live chat and you will find many other ways as well to interact with other seekers who enjoy the L/L Research offerings such as the Law of One and other Confederation material.

To check out our archive site, go to www.llresearch.org. There you can find the Law of One sessions, a dozen books or more, over 1500 channeling transcripts and other goodies.

L/L xxx -

Carla L. Rueckert-McCarty
L/L Research

L/L Research is a non-profit organization dedicated to metaphysical and paranomral research. We archive and publish information that we hope may be helpful to those who are seeking in a spiritual sense. Carla L. Rueckert-McCarty is the long time channel for the L/L Research group. Their channeled books include The Law of One, Books I - V, also known as The Ra Material, and her written books include A Wanderer's Handbook and A Channeling Handbook. Her column, "A Small Medium at Large", may be found on www.upi.com in the Religion and Spirituality section. The L/L Research archive website is www.llresearch.org.

2009-01-10

2009-01-11T08:00:00.002-05:00

Thunder awoke me early in the dark and by the time I arose it was drizzling steadily. I came down to find Lorena up and working on the LOOP (Law of One Prisoners) Newsletter. It is her fifth issue and the beginning of her second year with the L/L Research prison ministry. She has done a wonderful job! And I think this is her best issue yet. I began the morning’s work by consulting with her over format and doing a bit of “translation” from “Ra-Speak” to the vernacular for part of her issue.

I responded to Ian’s request for the dates of the third Channeling Intensive, as I am beginning now to send him edited transcripts from that Gathering. I also talked with him about unifying gender for Channeling Circle 8’s story.

Gary came up with a large sheaf of items to work on with me, and we spent a companionable couple of hours, before and after lunch, hashing out issues having to do with what content stays on our archive site now that B4 is up and running, and establishing a general policy for such decisions in the future. We got that worked out well, I think, quite logically.

Our biggest question was, what content having to do with L/L Gatherings goes on llresearch and what goes on B4. We decided that future and present material goes on B4. Then when the Gathering is over and we are collecting any transcripts or finalizing the curriculum for that Gathering, it goes on the archive site.

I finally had my chapel time in mid-afternoon and wrote my Holly Journal entry. Then it was time for my first Live Chat on B4. I had been concerned mostly that I could keep up with the questions in such a way as to make it clear to whom I was talking and then to make it clear when I was typing for a while and when I was finished. I got better at that as time went on. It was delightful and I really enjoyed the time.

Gary was by my side for this first attempt to work the software, for well he knows my status with computers in general: challenged! He was a great help, and I believe from now on I can do this by myself, which is a great feeling. Steve E., webmaster for B4, acted as my emcee, feeding me the questions one at a time, or trying to do so! Sometimes my follow-ups to a previous question intruded on the next question. But I believe we caught all the questions eventually. I will repeat this next week. I am thinking about making it a weekly occurrence. We’ll see how popular the offering is after a month of trying this out.

Romi invited Lorena and me to dine at Volare, one of my very favorite restaurants. We had such a good time and dined royally! Salmon Crostini – we split it three ways – was followed by seafood bisque and then both Lorena and I got their sea bass, which was incredibly good! What a meal! Homage to the chef! And many thanks to the Ro Man, who truly fed my foolish love of eating out in the best possible way!

We got back to find Gary, Mick and John Daniel waiting for us, and began the meeting forthwith. After a good round-robin talk, I tuned and we had a good channeling session. Gary’s question for tonight was on the dynamic between light and dark and how it seems that as we progress towards positive polarity, we get more powerful temptations from the service-to-self polarity. It was an interesting question and I look forward to editing that transcript when it comes back and seeing what the Q’uo principle said. I offered the Gaia Meditation prayer at the end of the session.

We conversed for a while most enjoyably after the session. Gary loves caves, and JD has one for him near his home which is no longer open to the public, with more formations by far, he says, than Mammoth Cave. I see a trip to visit Daniel in Gary’s near future! Finally Romi and John Daniel had to leave. JD had a two-hour drive back to Bowling Green, so we got him set up with a big mug of coffee to keep him awake and safe on his way home.

2009-01-09

2009-01-10T08:16:00.004-05:00

Mick awoke me at 8:00 a.m. in Fox and Steve’s lovely bedroom, the sunrise still pink and orange on the horizon. We came downstairs to find the couple preparing our breakfast – homemade waffles served with their own blueberries in a homemade compote, homemade cherry preserves, butter and maple syrup. They also produced juice, coffee and sausage and we had a most enjoyable meal together before going outside to see their new construction.

Steve has built everything in his home except the foundations. It runs to three levels now as well as including a large garage and Steve’s woodworking shop, over which extension is a full story of storage for building supplies. He has also created a greenhouse attached to the other side of the house. Now he is projecting out from their kitchen forward to create a full dining room off the kitchen and below it, a large studio for Fox’s weaving. She creates beautiful fabrics on her loom and in latter years has become increasingly able to find catalog and store outlets for her lovely handmade work.

Melissa was in her element as the couple showed us around, asking all kinds of questions and sharing from her vast research. She and Fox spent a good bit of time looking at her loom and materials while I went with Steve and Mick to see Steve’s growing collection of indigenous rock. As he’s dug out for these new additions to their home, when he comes across rock he harvests and sorts it. He has in mind – after the current projects are finished – a large area of patio connecting all the elements of the home. By the time he gets to that, he will have all the materials he needs!

The H’s are a very inspiring couple. Good and true, they met each other during their college years and from that day forward, they have been together. Eventually they married and had children, two beautiful babies whom Fox home-schooled. I remember the day she had to let them go to enter public high school. She said, “I am going to miss them so much!” In this day and age, a family who treasures their kids and wants to keep them close is a rarity.

The family now runs to six grandkids, which is what is driving Steve to build the dining room, and theirs is an extremely loving family, geographically and emotionally close and supportive. The life they have built is beautiful in so many ways! I admire them tremendously and it is such fun to be with them as they share the bounty of their farm and the sweetness of their personalities and lives with us!

We drove home to Camelot through warming temperatures and brilliant sunshine, with a pale full moon to guide us and mackerel clouds drifting by. When we got back, Lorena L, who had come down from Chicago last night late in order to work over the weekend on the next issue of L/L Research’s prisoner newsletter, The LOOP (Law of One – Prisoners, which she creates, had joined Gary in the office. The atmosphere was festive, with great music playing.

Mel caravaned with me to Bachman Subaru, where the parts which our encounter with the dog on our trip to Nebraska had destroyed had come in. On our way home we stopped by the cleaners to drop off my sweater, on which I had dropped tomato soup last week. They handed it back to me saying that they had no solution which would remove that stain. Rats! It is a favorite old garment of mine!

We also stopped by Ben Franklin, where we shored up our supply of giftwrapping items which last Christmas had depleted, all on good sale. We even scored six more trays for use when we have large L/L Research Gatherings. Now I think we have enough trays to serve 35 people. That’s a good feeling! And I found four tree ornaments for 1/16th their original price! That’s my first Christmas purchase for Christmas 2009!

Mick made a run up to Avalon to dump a big load of storm debris which he had cleared for a customer yesterday while I came upstairs to write my journals and have my chapel time – a late hour for that, but we were off schedule for the best of reasons! When he got back, my beloved Stanley Outback was ready to pick up and he took me there to collect it.

I spent the rest of the work day editing on Channeling Circle 11, the question for which was about the spiritual use of a sense of humor. I got within three pages of finishing that before bath time. So far it contains very good work by the new channels! I also collected a nifty, simple recipe for Honey Mustard Chicken.

As I came downstairs, Mel was just leaving, so we had our hugs and goodbyes. After Mick and I bathed we enjoyed a great date together. We were stunned by the energy we raised with seemingly no effort. I looked into his eyes and said, “Incredible!” he replied, “Miraculous! Thank you, Lord!” Feeling the best I have all day, I joined Mick downstairs and thought to join Gary and Lorena as well, but Gary had taken Lorena out for dinner, so we enjoyed a solitary late supper and then I offered the closing prayer at the Gaia Meditation.

2009-01-08

2009-01-09T13:31:00.003-05:00

My day started early, as I awoke early and arose instead of rolling over for another hour of snoozing. I wanted to have time to write my journals, have chapel time and write Steve E a thank-you letter for his marvelous and ongoing work on B4. I got that done in good time to come downstairs and enter in to the regular morning schedule.

After Morning Offering Mick set out on a run up to Avalon with the harvest of storm debris from yesterday’s JLS (Jim's Lawn Service) work with clearing downed trees for a customer. I caught up with correspondence with Ian, our archive site web guy, and then tackled the editing of Channeling Circle 8, from Channeling Intensive Three held last October. I found the story that the circle members channeled quite interesting. The only changes I made were to unify the tense of the story and the sex of the main character.

After lunch I enjoyed a manicure with my nail tech, Bethany, making good inroads now on my ingrown fingernails. As I grow older, those nails are ever more prone to roll right into my fingers on both sides of their nail beds, so I have recently upped my manicures from one a month to twice monthly, to very good effect.

Gary and I had made a date with Steve E, webmaster for B4, for a practice session for me in preparation for the live chat session scheduled for 3:00 p.m. EST on Saturday. Never have we been so glad for a rehearsal! My software balled up and sulked in SO many ways! Before the session ended we had installed Firefox freeware to replace my old Outlook and fiddled with the settings on my version of B4’s chat rooms site.

We also decided that Steve would not only moderate during our chat time of 3-5:00, but also emcee, placing himself between me and the people tuning in. I have a tendency to focus down on what I am doing, and have not learned at all well yet how to expand my awareness to multitask. Steve will make up for my lack by feeding me one question at a time.

After I left the meeting, Gary continued to work with Steve for some time, and I believe we’re good to go now for the Saturday session. I am jazzed and looking forward to the time. If it goes well I shall make it a weekly event.

I’ve limited my exposure to the general public in the last few years so that I can accomplish creative projects, and that’s a good decision. But now I can be more accessible, and give back to those who support me so beautifully, for two hours a week. And I think that, too, is a very good decision.

Melissa, Mick and I then drove down to Perryville, Kentucky, in Boyle County, as the night came and the weather turned frosty. We bore pizza and homemade mulled apple cider as gifts for Fox and Steve H, with whom we had planned to watch the National Championship Bowl. The drive down was delightful, as Mick had bought Yusuf Islam’s (formerly Cat Stevens’) new album, “Another Cup of Tea”. I loved every note!

We got there in good time for the game, which we enjoyed in their fairly newly built media room. Mick’s alma mater for his master’s degree in early childhood education, the University of Florida, won handily over Oklahoma in a defensively powered, relatively low-scoring game. It was so great to watch it with good friends!

Since we were not in a position to make a Gaia Meditation offering tonight, Mick and I simply passed the peace during a time-out break! We said our night-time prayers in our snug room in the same fairly new addition to their house while Mel tucked herself in downstairs in the H’s other guest room. Mick and I fell asleep with Venus shining in the window, blessing our slumber!

2009-01-07

2009-01-08T07:48:00.002-05:00

As the cold rain fell, and fell, and fell, and the city skies were pearly-white, Mick and I made our Morning Offering. Mick had already gone out, sprinkling calcium chloride at the day care center at St. Luke’s and on the three customers’ walks who have subscribed to that service this winter, while I wrote my Camelot Journal entry for yesterday.

I did a bit of personal e-mail and batted back the junk mail. Then I had my chapel time and asked Holly what the ER experience yesterday was all about. Hollt's answer is worth repeating here. She said,

"Living a life in Christ is a challenge indeed. If you follow all the injunctions of the Bible for diet and so forth, that is one kind of challenge – but not the challenge which cuts to the heart of the Christian injunction to love the Lord and your neighbor as yourself.

"Sometimes, the person one is most challenged to love turns out to be the self. When one is ill, helpless, vulnerable or uncomfortable, temptations arise that are a real challenge. There is the temptation to criticize the self for being in such a condition. There is the temptation to lose heart. There is the temptation to feel all alone. There is the temptation towards self-pity. These constitute a challenge which only a seasoned disciple of Christ can encounter with the knowledge that all is well and a prayer of thankfulness that such a challenge has been offered.

"When challenges of this kind come, accept them in gratitude and rest in peace of mind, knowing that the Lord is with you every moment of the way."

Meanwhile Mick manhandled the Christmas tree through the front door after gently laying away our homemade tree-top angel, our many ornaments, each with a story to tell of who gave it to us and when, and the lights that had wreathed the tree.

We went at 11:30 for a conversation with our trust officer, Doris S. Over a delicious lunch we talked over strategies and concerns. It was an excellent conversation. Doris will continue to lower our exposure to Exxon, with whose ethics we are in disagreement. We also will continue to look for non-equity sources of good investment for Don’s legacy to us. That trust has been our go-to for special needs for 25 years now, and we hope to nurture it well into the future.

When we returned to Camelot I came upstairs to my bower to edit another recent channeling session, this one responding to a question from Gary on the difference, speaking in terms of energy expenditure, of channeling radiance of being and being radiant. It was a fascinating session for me, and also contained an interesting Q and A on illness and the spiritual principles concerning it.

After a good warm bath for Mick and me to toast our cold toes and fingers and enjoy being clean – a metaphysical event for me as well as a physical one – I was off to choir practice at St. Luke’s. We had a wonderful rehearsal, starting the New Year with lots of new music for Epiphany, that wonderful liturgical season of light. I swam in the music like an otter! Whee! And I got to sing alto all night, a singular treat!

When I returned home we offered the Gaia Meditation – Mick offered the closing prayer - and then had Gary’s Christmas. He’s been gone for all previous 2008 occasions to open presents, so we had our own ceremony quite late. Gary gave me the best present ever: a certificate good for his detailing Stanley Outback! He’s superb at doing this, and Stanley will soon shine! Mick received one gadget which lets him listen to his beloved iPod in the car and another one for the iPod which I did not understand – but Mick did and he was thrilled!

We gave Gary a gift card to the nicest near shopping center, where he promised to spend it on clothes and books, and a couple of pairs of flannel-lined jeans for his camping excursions. And he exclaimed over Mel’s stocking, which was amazingly generous, filled with three candles for his baths, lock de-icer and all manner of candies, nuts and fruit. Merry Christmas, again!

2008-01-06

2009-01-07T08:23:00.003-05:00

While the skies wept over chilly Kentucky, I spent my morning writing my journals, having chapel time and rewriting a paragraph in my UPI article on Chris Jordan to include more places to see his photographic images. Then I had an early lunch, as at 1:00 p.m. I was due downtown at Norton’s Hospital for a new procedure to me, an epidural in which anti-inflammatory medicine is placed directly into the neck area. I have recently had a good deal of nerve pain in that area and down my shoulders and arms.

Unfortunately I thought that the procedure was to take place at The Spine Institute, and I arrived there and waited for half an hour before the receptionist realized that my doctor was not at the Institute today. She called me up to investigate and I told her that I was there for an epidural. She said that they did not give them there but at a hospital. A record search showed that the appointment had been made at Norton’s. They kindly called over to Norton’s for me to explain the foul-up to them and Mick and I searched out the place I was to go in the rambling Norton’s campus. Thank heavens for wheel chairs! I would never have made the long trek on foot.

Once there the nurse spent time getting my health history – it is complicated and lengthy – and prepping me for the epidural. The procedure went well and I liked Dr. Morris, who has been doing this procedure for 19 years with a perfect record. The problem came when my blood pressure would not go back down after the procedure. Morris sent me to Norton Hospital's emergency room. By now it was after 3:00.

It was a wet and sloppy day on Louisville streets, and one ambulance after another rolled in while Mick and I waited. All of these cases were more urgent than mine, and so they went in ahead of us. Hours sauntered slowly by. It got dark. Eventually I suggested that we get something to eat, since once I was called back for treatment, food would not be allowed. Mick got a cafeteria meal for us both.

At 7:30 the nurse said that he had prepared a bed for me in the aisle of the treatment rooms, because he hated to see me in the waiting room so long. Back Mick and I went. We had a great view of the action of a downtown ER. For each patient, a different piece of ungainly equipment rolled by and was used. Each machine sounded a different tune, one like a harmonica playing a five-note tune, another dinging, another clanging. We spent time speculating on the nature of each pile of metal bells and whistles.

My favorite patient during this period was a very large, older woman of color whose opulent flesh overflowed her treatment bed. She had a marvelously fashioned, highly bouffant wig on, or mostly on. When she moved her head, the wig stayed where it was. The effect was fetching!

The ER doctors kept me until 10:00 p.m., giving me oxygen and medicine to lower the blood pressure that had landed me there and taking my blood pressure again and again. It came down from 230 to 200, and they finally agreed that I could go home as long as I made an appointment to follow up with my family doctor.

I already have an appointment with Dr. Aboud, my GP, on January 20th, and it is likely that I could not get an earlier appointment than that, so I easily agreed. It was never so sweet to see Camelot. Our Christmas lights were up for one last night as the Feast of Epiphany comes and Christmas’s twelve days end.

Mick and I offered the Gaia Meditation there in the ER hallway, since that’s where we were at 9:00. However the prayer was never completed at the close, because suddenly there was a rumpus in one of the treatment rooms with a foul-mouthed woman screaming her lungs out, demanding that she not be touched and accusing the staff of improprieties. Mick and I opened our eyes, looked at each other and, over the din, said, “Peace!”

I prayed, "Holly, I thank you for the gift of this day. When it is convenient, I would love to know the nature of this gift! Lay it on me!" The attitude of gratitude always makes things better, and I look forward to Holly's eventual explanation!

2009-01-05

2009-01-06T07:58:00.002-05:00

I started this cloudy, warm day by composing ten questions and answers for the St. Luke’s choir’s upcoming Trivial Pursuit Night in the area of literature. They are holding the event smack dab across our usual Saturday night public meeting time so I cannot attend, but I can help chairperson Kathy get ready for the event!

I slept too late this morning to write my journals before waking Mick, so I spent a part of the morning having my chapel time and making entries in the Camelot Journal and the Holly Journal. Then I started writing an article on Chris Jordan for my difference-maker series on UPI’s www.religionandspirituality.com blog site, where I blog as A Small Medium At Large. I finished the rough draft in time to make it to a doctor’s appointment at 3:00 p.m. and tidied it up when I returned.

It felt so much like spring when I was outside! Recent rains have perked up the grasses and it smelled green and hopeful! Dan D. Lion was there when I got back, ready for lots of pats on my way inside from the car. He's thriving in the wild, huskier and more powerful by far than when he was an inside cat.

I also let Doris know by e-mail that Mick prefers to meet for our business appointment at her office rather than at a restaurant as we had originally planned.

Mick arrived home at dusk after putting in a hard-working day splitting tree trunk pieces for a customer who wanted her storm debris turned into firewood. He collected the debris that was too small to split and took it up to Avalon to dump where Melissa had marked for it to go, at the edge of the access road. He was so glad to get that big job done! Now he’s ready to tackle another, even bigger job at St. Luke’s, more downed trees from the big windstorm last fall.

We enjoyed a long hot bath together before coming upstairs for a date, which was just lovely. Then we had supper and offered the Gaia Meditation, with Mick praying at the close.

2009-01-04

2009-01-05T08:04:00.005-05:00

While the skies lowered and the thermometer topped 60 F, Mick and I had a restful Sabbath. I enjoyed a second Sunday of Christmas and the choir sang a carol by Hector Berlioz, "The Shepherd’s Farewell", a sweet piece, for the anthem.

Mick took me home to our newly sparkling house and we sat down to lunch while viewing a singularly beautiful movie, Flashbacks of a Fool. The excellence of the film did not lie in the theme of its screenplay, which dealt with the well worn tale of regret while looking back at a wasted talent and life. Rather, its excellence lay in the symmetry and unhurried storytelling of the script, and its seamless realization by the key character, played as an adult by Daniel Craig and as a teenager by Harry Eden.

The surrounding ensemble was entirely competent. Mark Strong, Olivia Williams and Claire Forlani offered excellent support to Craig’s and Eden’s joint portrayal of Joe Scot, a person wooed from meaningful living by his own physical beauty. And the cinematography was spellbinding, lovingly caressing all at which it looked. Songs by David Bowie, Roxy Music and Scott Walker underscored the movement of the piece seamlessly. I cannot say that the film edified or enlightened, but as a work of art it was perfect. I loved the film and awoke from its ending as from a lovely and enchanted dream.

Our second feature was Martin Scorsese’s look at a recent Rolling Stones concert tour, Shine A Light. What a great romp! It was terrific to see the performances, the four durable rockers supported by excellent, compelling turns by Jack White, Christine Aguilera and Buddy Guy. The entire cast had the best time!

What are the odds that four teenagers – Mick Jagger, Ronny Woods, Keith Richards and Charlie Watts – would live into their sixties with full heads of hair and not an extra pound on their frames? Their youthful physiques made the look of the show eternal and iconic.

I have been fascinated by the perfection of Jagger’s concentration and focus as an artist ever since seeing him, a couple of decades ago, in The Rolling Stones at the Imax. I saw that film half a dozen times. Jagger and his cohorts may seem as though they are playing onstage, as indeed they are, but there is not a note off-key, not a beat out of place and each song's playing is as tight as a drum.

Jagger continues in this film to amaze me with the precision of his art. He is a delight to see, not simply in terms of entertaining but also, for the eye of a former back-up singer in the seventies, in terms of the razor-sharp edge of his performance. As he skips, runs and gyrates, he brings a rhythmic energy to the music that explicates rather than accompanies. His lyrics are crisp and clean, each note accurately placed, sensitively styled and in the middle of the pitch.

Scorsese manages in a few economic scenes, moreover, to capture the manic spontaneity of rock and roll as he fruitlessly tries to find out what songs the lads are planning to play. His humor is entirely self-deprecating and devoid of egotism, and the embroidery of the backstage angst adds the perfect foil to the singing.

Five Bic flicks to this grand, engaging and generous concert film.

We called Mick’s Mom and enjoyed a late supper before the Gaia Meditation, at which Mick offered the closing prayer.

2009-01-03

2009-01-04T07:47:00.002-05:00

The skies lowered as the temperature climbed and we had a warm, pearly-gray day of it. We slept late and made our Morning Offering before Mick cleaned the kitchen and did his round of errands while I came upstairs and promptly fell asleep. After the impromptu nap, I got my journals written and had a good chapel time before lunch.

After lunch Mick went to a customer’s place to replace some shingles which had blown off the roof of her 200-year-old farmhouse. I edited the transcript of the channeling session from December 13, 2008 which transcriber Aaron T had sent in.

We have been offered an advertising opportunity by BBS Radio (www.bbsradio.com) which airs our channeling sessions weekly on Saturday nights, and I sent the offer along to Mick and Gary so we could discuss it.

Romi came over to work on the computers. He had some frustrating moments, but in the end, he said things were coming along on his upgrade of our book-keeper’s computer. He also has had a failure on his first attempt to scan Dana Redfield’s appendices for The Alphabet Mosaics into a finished document. He can send me the text portions of her appendices to edit, but the images changed size when he put them into a finished document. So he will start over on them, scanning the images another way.

Mick and I welcomed Daniel and Romi for silent meditation after supper. We had an excellent talk around the circle, and then a very good half-hour meditation. I am always able to meditate more deeply in a group, carried by the combined energy of the sitting circle. At the end of that meditation I offered the Gaia Meditation’s prayer for peace in our hearts and peace in the world.

Afterwards, Daniel sat and read Chapter 8 of Secrets of the UFO, which reports on three hypnotic regressions of subjects who tell of coming to Earth as wanderers, while Romi opened his Christmas presents from Mick, Melissa and me and Mick did laundry, getting the house back in order after the Craver-Rueckerts’ visit. We all said good-night around 11:00 p.m.

2009-01-02

2009-01-03T11:21:00.002-05:00

Since the Craver-Rueckerts had expressed the desire to leave the house at 7:00 a.m., I was thrilled to have awakened, quite naturally, early enough to have my chapel time and write my journal entries before going downstairs to fix some coffee and hot water for tea at 6:45. However no one stirred. Finally, knowing just how crowded their schedule was when they returned to Falls Church, I knocked on Tommy and Mary’s door at 7:30.

When the family surfaced around 8:00, they decided to skip breakfast at Artemisia (drat!) and get on the road. I waved them off and found Mick just awakening, so we snuggled for a while and went right into our usual schedule. After Morning Offering, Mick set out on a full day’s work with storm debris, clearing a large, messy back acre for a customer. He took one load of debris to Avalon and he and Melissa dumped it where she needed it for erosion control off the edge of the access road and into the ravine. He spent the rest of the day splitting big logs for his customer and stacking them for her use. He still has another day of work to do there.

I came up to my bower office, the happy, chilly sunshine pouring into the room, and promptly fell asleep. I roused briefly and starting to update my to-do list but sank inadvertently into slumber once again, awakened only by hunger. After lunch I repeated the routine, spending some work time in napping twice. However I did finish my to-do list, which runs to one and a half pages single-spaced. Now I merely have to accomplish each task!

Gary asked me to look over his announcement to our full e-mailing list about our launch of www.bring4th.org, and I spent a most pleasant hour tweaking his work. Gary has a tremendous sense of humor, light and playful, and so my goal was to shape up the letter while retaining his whimsical style. He came upstairs when he received my edit and thanked me for doing just that, so I am satisfied that I did not quench his wonderful style.

I hope everyone will come aboard B4 and register, surf around with the forums and in general settle in to our L/L Research extended community. Our hope is to provide a good meeting place for people who, in their own environments, feel somewhat isolated and have no one with whom to talk about their interests.

I have set up a tentative date for live chat on January 10th, a week from now. If webmaster Steve can finish getting that software set up by then, we’ll have an open conversation. It’s something I have wanted to offer for a long time.

We have received a good many donations in the week between Christmas and New Year’s, and I thank all of those who were so generous! We are close to halfway to our goal for this year, a really good start.

We also received news today that Peter Schiffer, the publisher of the Law of One series, has died. He was always adamant about retaining all rights to our work and it has been a sad hassle since he never wished to do things we wanted to do with the work, like republish it in mass-market format for store racks, or combine all the volumes in one master-volume. Perhaps now the company will release its grip on our work! That would be marvelous.

After Mick returned home at dusk and we bathed together, we came upstairs for a lovely date. As we celebrate our 28th year of being lovers and friends, the energy between us continues to climb and intensify. This defies both our natural aging process and the popular cultural concept of passion that must cool with time. It’s a beautiful thing, and I attribute it to two things.

Firstly, Mick never asks me for a date unless things between us are clear and positive, unshadowed by issues or hurt feelings.

Secondly, we are very conscious of the sacred nature of sexual sharing, and are present, not only with each other but also with the Creator, as we come together. It adds up to wonderful, joyous fun. Thank you Lord, and thank you, Mick, my dreamboat forever!

Mick pried me out of the afterglow to have a late supper. I offered the closing prayer at the Gaia Meditation tonight.

2009-01-01

2009-01-02T06:13:00.003-05:00

Happy New Year! Mick and I enjoyed having Tommy join us for a late Morning Offering. For the hymn, Tommy got out his guitar and we sang “Down to Earth like a Dove” together. It felt so good to sing with my li'l bro!

I made a streusel coffeecake – thanks, Tom C, for the recipe – for the assembled, who joined Mick and me throughout the next couple of hours. Ted was the last one up, surfacing at 11:30 or so. There was half a coffeecake left, after everyone else had had all they wanted, and I was amazed to see it all disappear! It brought me a vivid flash of how different my attitude towards food is from a mother feeding a 16-year-old son! I think in terms of cooking for a week. Mary must think in terms of cooking enough for today, she hopes!

Our day flowed effortlessly from there. Melissa spent her work time today at the computer, doing research and e-mail. Gary joined her at the L/L helm around lunchtime and worked until late into the evening.

Mick settled in with the generous array of football bowls at 1:00 and enjoyed the games all the rest of the day when he was not cleaning up after us all in the kitchen or staging dinner. He was a happy man!

I enjoyed hanging with the kids and Mary in the morning, and spent the afternoon with Gary up in my office, getting further educated on www.bring4th.org, our new sister site to www.llresearch.org. I learned how to make a forum entry – I chose the 2012 forum since I wanted to mention the upcoming 2012-oriented gathering this April – and gave a link to my two Mackinac Island speeches on 2012 at “A Time of Awakening in August 2007.

We all came together for a dinner of Wimmer’s Wieners, which we brought back from Nebraska, mashed potatoes, white chili and a big salad. Mick put that all together, and again, thanks to Ted’s appetite, the chili and the wieners were all polished off! Ted is a slender young man who tops out at 5’ 8”, so he clearly has the proverbial hollow leg. I must say that Tommy and Mary’s three children are exceptionally fun and good to know, bright as new pennies and full of interests and gifts. It has been terrific catching up with Rosie, EJ and Ted.

Christiana Rose is in her freshman year in college now, while Theodore Thomas is in his junior year in high school and Emily Jean is in her eighth grade year. They truly do Tommy and Mary proud! And they all happen to be beautiful of face and form. As Melissa said when she was preparing to leave late in the evening for Avalon, “You are a remarkable family!” I am so grateful that Mary Craver said yes to Tommy Rueckert just a few short years back!

After supper we settled down to a thoughtful time of reflection and shared around the circle about our spiritual journeys. I talked about finding a new level of prayer as I did the daily Holly meditations and Journal. Then Mick talked about faith, and from there it just got better and better.

We then sang carols, with Tommy accompanying on guitar and EJ on violin, until midnight.

Finally it was time for a late session for the Craver-Rueckerts of packing the car so that they could make an early start for the drive home tomorrow. We’ll go downtown to Artemisia Restaurant for their farewell meal, a breakfast with Walker and Kays, Mick’s and my favorite local jazz group. Artemisia is having a special “New Year’s Brunch”, and that fits our plans perfectly.

We were supping at 9:00, so Mick and I shared a brief prayer for peace in our hearts and in the world, the quickest Gaia Meditation in history! But the thought was there!

2008-12-31

2009-01-01T08:51:00.002-05:00

We had a combination holiday today – subjective Rueckert Christmas Day and consensus-reality New Year’s Eve. Mel came down from Avalon to join us for the latter celebration. The weather cooperated, giving us lots of sunshine while the thermometer plunged all day until the air snapped crisply in the nose like good wine.

After Morning Offering, Mick went to the grocery for a few more supplies. The Craver-Rueckerts arose far earlier than yesterday, and by noon, everyone had eaten Tommy’s breakfast of bacon, brats and eggs over easy. We set about the enjoyable task of opening our presents. Then we settled back and watched another episode of The Office from Ted’s DVD of the first six episodes before we decided to go outside for exercise.

Papa John Schnatter of pizza fame, a resident of our little village, recently finished a system of nature and exercise trails that run through his property, a 300-acre estate a couple of blocks and lots of income levels to the north of our house. Tommy and Ted most kindly gave me a tour, pushing me in the wheelchair over hill and dale. Discovering that the small front wheels of my chair would not let him jog, Tommy popped a permanent wheelie and ran with me tilted backwards at an angle so the front wheels were not hitting the macadam. It felt wickedly precarious but all was well, and I had quite an adventure!

I met with Gary during the lull caused by everyone grabbing a shower after running, and he got me all set on www.bring4th.org. I am now a member! I still have not had the time to explore the new site, having been booked with family matters since Christmas Day. But I will do so as soon as my brother and his family leave Louisville, the day after tomorrow. I also need to write Steve E, the webmaster of the site, and congratulate him on his wonderful launch of so many features!

The Craver-Rueckert clan came and got me and we went to another mall so that Ted, Rosie and EJ could shop for some clothes with their Christmas money. We enjoyed shopping until 8:00 p.m., when the mall closed, and then came home to the aroma of meat loaf, mashed potatoes, peas and mushrooms in Alfredo sauce and green beans with French-fried onions. I quickly made some gravy to top off the tastes, and we sat down to a feast!

We had pie and ice cream to finish the meal while we watched the rest of the episodes of The Office, which took us to midnight. We cheered in the New Year before we all went to bed.

Mick and I passed the prayer for peace at the close of the Gaia Meditation with each other in the cracks of the evening.

I wish all those who read this blog a massive amount of good luck, good friends, good work to do and good health in 2009!

2008-12-30

2008-12-31T08:37:00.002-05:00

Mary had said last night that she would be up by 9:30 and wanted to go out fairly early, so by that hour I had coffee, juices, breads and condiments ready for a continental breakfast. Mick and I did our Morning Offering, and then he went to work for his customer with the forested lawns full of leaves and finally finished bagging them for her. I believe his final total of leaf-bags was 271!

Imagine his surprise when he came back by Camelot to eat lunch at noon and no one was up but me! I told him, “If I’d known, I could have finished my UPI article this morning!" He commiserated with me before leaving to drive to Shelbyville and spend the afternoon cleaning the last of the season’s leaves from Steve F’s estate.

Gary blew in from his Christmas vacation while Mick and I were talking, full of great energy and ready to work at the L/L Research helm. After a full eight hours, he was still massively behind, he said, and he will work again tomorrow. It’s fine indeed to see Iss!

In the event, the last Rueckert awake and stirring was Mary! I think the whole family was just exhausted! So it was good that they slept in. We eventually got on the road to Lynn’s Paradise Café, since Mary had requested a “fancy breakfast place”. Lynn’s takes the cake for that! We all had delicious breakfast dishes there and lingered at table until 3:00 p.m.

Then we stopped by Margaret’s Consignment Shop, since Ted wanted to shop for clothes as well as the girls. I had good luck, finding a purple velvet skirt and a matching top with some pretty bling to add to my closet. I used some of Mom McCarty's gift - cash! Thanks, Mom!

I am grateful for the goodly number of purple and lavender garments to wear with my purple hair. Actually, it is a very dark purple and in dimmer light it just looks dark. However in sunlight, it’s truly purple! I am enjoying the jazzy look and feel of the outrageous color. Every time I see myself in the mirror I grin.

Mary and the kids dropped me back by Camelot and then they went to the malls while Tommy went for a run. Mick and I had a bath and settled in for the evening with the generous dose of football games available today. Everyone arrived back at Camelot by 8:30 and we dined on the delicious ham dinner Mel and Mick prepared last week. Romi joined us and we had a very convivial party of it. It was terrific to see the Ro Man back home!

Then the Craver-Rueckerts and the Rueckert-McCartys played a round of a game called “Imaginiff”. Its silly antics left us all laughing.

It was midnight when the game ended, and Mick and I excused ourselves from the group and went upstairs to bed. We shared a very late Gaia Meditation, with the closing prayer also shared. The Rueckerts stayed up to watch an episode of The Office before calling it a day.

The obvious strain that accompanied their last visit here, two years ago, is nowhere in sight! I think everyone is having a really good time. The vibrations are loving and happy, with no shadows. Praise the Lord! Tomorrow we enjoy a second installment of Christmas giving, combining subjective Rueckert Christmas with New Year’s Eve. And Melissa's coming! We shall ring in the New Year in wonderful company!

2008-12-29

2008-12-30T08:10:00.001-05:00

After Morning Offering Mick went out for errands while I came up to finish my journals, have chapel time and start work on a UPI article on a new difference-maker, Chris Jordan. He is an artist, a photographer who shared my experience of seeing inadvertent beauty in things like a garbage dump shining in the sun. He began taking time to create images of this wabi-sabi beauty and then headed towards activism by creating photographic images of plastic bags or contrails en masse.

Mick and I had lunch together and then I worked further to gather my information for the article while Mick continued with detailing his truck. We broke for a bath at 4:00 p.m. and the Rueckerts – Tommy, Mary, Rosie, Ted and EJ – arrived just as we were dressed again, perfect timing. I popped Melissa’s Artichoke and Spinach Dip in the oven to warm, sliced the French bread and our guests got settled and then joined us in the living room for a nosh and our first chance to talk together in two years as a family.

At 6:00, most of the Rueckerts went out for a run, came back and showered, and we went to the L & N Bistro, which is a restaurant owned and run by Tommy’s long-time friend, Nancy – the N in ‘L & N”. Her brother, Will, also one of Tommy’s oldest friends as they went to school from grade one onwards through high school, joined us with his wife and their two children, a four-year-old and a babe in arms. We had delicious food and a long, rich conversation. Lots of laughter and reminiscences later, we came home replete.

On the way we drove through Lake Forest, a ritzy subdivision nearby which runs its own Christmas home exterior decorating contest, so the houses are fun to look at, with their many colors of lights and fanciful lawn and roof decorations.

When we came back, Tommy got out a game called Sniglets and we had fun with that until about 11:30. Finally the party broke up, and Mick and I came upstairs for a late date, an amazingly powerful energy exchange that left us in awe in the afterglow. And for once, I got to go to sleep immediately thereafter! I barely recall saying our final prayers together. Ah!

2008-12-28

2008-12-29T08:10:00.002-05:00

I awoke with significant nerve pain still creating a challenge for me and decided to spend another indolent day recuperating and hopefully eliminating this type of pain in my neck and shoulders. Otherwise I shall make an appointment for a cortisone epidural on Monday.

Since I did not go to church, Mick and I made our Morning Offering. Then I subsided into puzzles and reading for the morning while Mick cleaned the house. We enjoyed lunch while we watched The Duchess, an opulently produced film set in the late 18th century. The modest-looking Ralph Fiennes walked away with by far the most masterful performance in the piece as a British aristocrat, the most powerful peer in England and a cold, autocratic and insensitive man. In his middle age he marries 17-year-old Keira Knightley, a beautiful young girl who then must cope with an increasing number of injustices.

Knightley does well at expressing the mixture of outrage and the reluctant acceptance that is her only option if she wishes to avoid hurting others. She is costumed and styled magnificently and the settings are memorably rich. The couple is surrounded by an excellent ensemble of players. Charlotte Rampling is especially good as Knightley’s lady mother. Dominic Cooper and Hayley Artwell are also notable as Knightley’s lover and Fiennes’ live-in mistress. What a tangled set of relationships and emotions! The gossip-mongers of the day must have enjoyed this true story!

Michael O’Conner’s costumes have already garnered awards in Britain and should sweep American awards as well. His work is truly outstanding.

Later in the afternoon, after Mick accomplished some needed office work relating to Jim’s Lawn Service, we took up Hancock, a whacky comedy with no particular point except to make us laugh, starring Will Smith in an enjoyable performance as a disenchanted superhero. He’s still saving innocent victims and preserving the peace, but he’s become a bit grumpy and acts out his malaise, damaging the pavements upon which he lands and allowing a good deal of collateral damage during his derring-do.

Jason Bateman, under Peter Berg’s excellent direction, coaxes the recalcitrant superhero into mending his ways, while Charlize Theron is particularly tasty as another superhero(ine) who helps pull Hancock into shape. The silliness is delightfully played and I enjoyed the film tremendously.

We heard from my brother Tommy in late afternoon. It seems that the family got away at 1:30 p.m., so there was no chance of their arriving in Louisville until 2:00 a.m. So he, Mary and their children, Rosie, Ted and E.J., will stay with Mary’s aunt in Beckley, Virginia tonight and arrive at Camelot sometime tomorrow afternoon.

This was dandy news! Much as we will enjoy their visit, it was delicious to have another full day of alone-time. We have had more company than usual, with Tobey and family visiting just before Christmas and Mel, Eric and Phell sharing our Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. It has been delightful! But we enjoy solitude as well. Now we have another day of it!

Tommy and the family plan to stay through New Year’s Day so that Tommy can watch a day of football with Mick. Tommy tells me his family has not been so excited about a Christmas visit in years! I think the work that Mary and I did beforehand has made all the difference for us all.

We’ve smoothed out the glitch of Mary’s having to spend too much time with Tommy’s old school friends and have made some fun plans for urban and rural recreation. I am certainly looking forward to it far more than in previous years. And we have moved Mary and Tommy to the basement room where no cats have ever been, which will hopefully alleviate Mary’s allergies.

Mick and I concluded our Sunday by enjoying some episodes of House. Mick offered the closing prayer at the Gaia Meditation tonight.

2008-12-27

2008-12-28T06:56:00.004-05:00

Awakening at 3:00 a.m. with interstitial cystitis symptoms that kept me in the bathroom most of the rest of the night and continued arthritic symptoms of nerve pain in my neck and left shoulder, I found myself ready to accept Mick’s suggestion that I rest completely for the day. So while Mick and Melissa swirled around the house having a very productive day, I worked my new Christmas crossword puzzles from Mel and read the new Nora Roberts romance that Mick gave me and took it easy. By bath time, my symptoms had calmed down and I was able to channel tonight.

The two finished cooking the food in advance of my brother, Tommy’s visit with his family, which will begin tomorrow evening. We now have two complete meals of the normal sit-down kind, plus a wiener-and-chili meal to eat while watching football on New Year’s Day. We have salad and deli meats for lunches and bacon and farm-fresh eggs for breakfasts. We’re ready!

Mel packed away the turkey hash, herbed parsnips and curried wild rice that were left over from Christmas Eve and will eat that up on Avalon. We finished the work day with newly organized refrigerators and a feeling of readiness that's sweet indeed.

Melissa spent the afternoon shopping with her Wal-Mart gift card, given by Gary, laying in her supply of winter underwear and new socks and shopping around for other items on her list, to no avail.

Mick whiled away the afternoon hours doing his annual clean-up of Sibyl, his JLS truck. The truck is used hard all year for lawn work, and gradually his four carefully filled boxes of tools become jumbled and the truck gets dirty. By bath time Sibyl was all cleaned out and the inside scrubbed with 409. The four boxes, which cleverly fit the truck bed, were replaced, all organized again, and secured by the space bar. Mick’s ready to go for another year!

Daniel from Bowling Green, Kentucky, joined Melissa, Mick and me for our L/L Research meditation and study meeting at 8:00 p.m. We had our round-robin discussion and then chose a group question on whether we can learn wisdom from our teachers or whether we can only learn by our own experiences. It was an interesting question and I look forward to editing the transcript and learning more about Q'uo's response.

I offered the prayer for the Gaia Meditation at the end of our channeled meditation.

2008-12-26

2008-12-27T07:38:00.004-05:00

The weather warmed up all day, but from dawn until dusk it remained overcast and lowering. After Morning Offering I spent a fruitless half-hour on the telephone attempting to make an appointment at the Spine Institute for an epidural injection of cortisone to alleviate a particularly painful flare-up of nerve pain in my neck and left shoulder but it was impossible to get off “hold”. Another half-hour in the afternoon produced the same results. It’s too bad, because the weekend is upon us, and I will not be able to get even an appointment, much less the injection, until Monday. Ah well!

My brother Jim sent me some photos of my youngest nephew, his and Kai’s son Wills. I thought Wills had inherited his Mom’s Asian eyes, but the new photos show no epicanthic folds. He’s a big baby! I teased my brother as to where the baby inherited that size! The Rueckerts are a small-boned, slightly built family. Jim is 5’ 8” and Kai, a native of Thailand, barely clears five feet. I am 5’ 4” and my other brother, Tommy, is 5’ 7”. Wills will dwarf us all someday!

Jim seems very happy indeed, for which I am profoundly grateful to Kai, a strong woman with excellent values. She is just what he has needed for decades! She is half his age, but contains more drive, energy and nerve in her little body than my amiable brother ever had. So the match is well nigh perfect. I think they have found true love.

Jim reports that Kai’s restaurant, now a year old, is solidly in the black and gaining momentum. This is super news, for they went deeply into debt in order to procure the building and start up the business. I suspect that Kai will eventually do so well with the business that Jim might even be able to go to work for her instead of teaching electronics. He loves to chat up the customers with his usual outgoing, genuinely friendly personality and good cheer. I am so thrilled that their gamble paid off for them!

I wrote half a dozen personal e-mails and then responded to Buke T’s latest questions. Then, feeling distinctly below par, I relaxed into a deep afternoon nap. When I awoke it was time to greet Morris, our L/L Research vice-president, who came over during his all-too-brief yearly visit to his Dad to be with us for the annual meeting. We had a quorum with Gary, Melissa, Steve T, Morris, Mick and I on the line. Jim had created a solid agenda and the meeting only took an hour! And we covered everything well. We will send the minutes of the meeting to the rest of the board next week.

We reported that our fund drive had netted $17,000+ so far. So we shall extend the drive into next year, since we need a good bit more than that to do business for all of 2009. And we were thrilled to report that www.bring4th.net is launched!

It was wonderful to be with Morris, a most beloved friend and partner in service to others! He is such an inspiration to us! He had all sorts of family obligations today and had to leave way too soon, but he promises to stop by for a strictly personal visit on his way to the airport as he leaves town. We shall look forward to that!

After Morris left, Mick and I indulged in a long whirlpool and then a sweet, slow, very exciting energy exchange. I went to sleep in the afterglow as usual, and Mick awoke me later for a late supper and the Gaia Meditation. Mick offered the closing prayer.

2008-12-25

2008-12-26T08:34:00.002-05:00

Christmas came gently to Camelot, with cloudy skies and temperatures chilly enough to make snuggling into a sweater feel good. We slept late and gathered around 9:00 for our Morning Offering. Mel and I were still in our jimmies as we listened to the readings for today and offered up hymns and prayers along with some silent meditation.

Melissa and I changed into day wear and I had my ice treatment – Mick massages my back and neck with ice for 2 minutes twice a day to take down the level of arthritic pain – and then we reassembled for the great unwrapping! First we opened the stockings which Santa Mel had made, retrieving nuts, tangerines, candies and small gifts like a crossword puzzle book for me and a yo-yo for Mick. The stockings were generous and opening each little gift took us until almost 11:30.

We took a short break, Melissa for a smoke, Mick for a Christmas snuggle with Dan D. Lion and me for a call to Gary to figure out how to launch www.bring4th.org! Don’t ask me how, but the carefully pre-set image on the computer had shifted to the right. I could see where the ribbon which I was supposed to click on ended, but it was basically off-screen to the left, nor could I move it into view. Gary set me right soon enough, and voila! The work of Steve E’s many sleepless nights and commuter trips was unveiled! I shall have to go on-line tomorrow, log in and play with the site’s features. Kudos to Steve for a wonderful job!

We three had expected Eric and his Mom, Phell, yesterday evening, but the rain was too heavy for them down in Marion County yesterday, with lots of ponding and flooding on roadways, and they stayed safely home until today. They arrived as we were beginning to open presents, and fell right into our Christmas schemes. We happily opened presents around the circle until we were all out of bows to untie and ribbons to cut and subsided into conversation, replete with lovely presents and each others’ company. It did seem like a shame to tear up Mel's beautiful and artistic wraps, which featured natural decorations like rose hips, oak-leaf hydrangea blossoms and sedum!

Melissa brought out her baked artichoke-heart and spinach appetizer, with crusty French bread to slather it on, and we feasted on that while our Christmas dinner was heating. In time, the biscuits were popped in the oven and I made the gravy. We laid out meat loaf, mashed potatoes and green bean casserole – comfort food indeed, and a nice change from the traditional foods. Mom McCarty’s chocolate cake and ice cream topped off the meal. Yum!

These celebratory times always go too fast! Eric and Phell left at 4:30, wanting to drive home in daylight, and Melissa left soon thereafter, hearing her chickens and kitties calling. Mick and I did a bit of clean-up and put-away, and then I relaxed with my Christmas puzzle book while Mick washed the linens from Tobey’s family’s visit and got the beds ready to receive Tommy, Mary and their three children on the 27th.

We reunited for a late supper and the Gaia Meditation, at which I offered the closing prayer. I hope that each who reads this little journal had a most blessed and beautifully meaningful day as well!

2008-12-24

2008-12-25T07:55:00.005-05:00

Christmas Eve! The magic of it swirled around me as I sat in Morning Offering and beheld the day! Delicious! Afterwards, Melissa, Mick and I descended upon the kitchen. First Mel went through our freezers and fridges – we have two of them, for use when we have a Gathering – to make space to store the food we were to cook. She pulled out a package of beef that was past its eat-by date.

So before we got started on the cooking for today and tomorrow, I cut some onions, carrots and celery and stewed the patties to make beef broth. I firmly believe in keeping homemade broth handy. It makes a good recipe better when you can use broth instead of water to cook rice or make gravy or soup.

Then we pitched in! Mick created mashed potatoes for Christmas Day dinner. Mel created the meat loaf for the same meal. I tackled the chicken chili for late-night supper tomorrow. Mick re-potted the curried wild rice and the parsnips with herbs which Gary made last Friday for the occasion tonight while Melissa finished up tomorrow’s meal by making green beans with French-fried onions.

Mick finished his good work by going to the grocery for yet more things we forgot – biscuits for Christmas Day’s feast, potato chips and deli meats and cheeses for late-night sandwiches tomorrow. I, who kept having to rest between stages of cooking, took on the turkey hash for tonight and at last finished it. Mel and Mick manned the kitchen clean-up. And we were ready to relax!

Melissa sat down with Traitor, a film which Mick and I had viewed last Sunday. I came upstairs to read and, hopefully, nap and Mick eventually joined me to invite me to a bath. We came back upstairs after we got all scrubbed and napped together until time for dinner, a meal which we thoroughly enjoyed!

We three conversed until the Gaia Meditation, at which Mick offered the closing prayer. Then it was time for me to go to St. Luke’s for the practice before the midnight mass. The choir worked its way through the many pieces we were to sing tonight, and then, all at once, the wonderful service began. Melissa and Mick came to hear all the music, which tickled me no end!

I felt present with Christ tonight, and I felt also that Christ was present with me. I was lifted to a spacious, glowing place of light where every sensation of ear and eye registered with supernal clarity. My throat opened and I was able to sing the high notes of my parts in several baroque anthems surely and cleanly. Praise the Lord! The service was riveting and sparkling but long, lasting until 12:30, so when Mick picked me up at the chancel steps in the wheelchair, we could say, “Merry Christmas!”

I will sleep well tonight – no sugarplums, just thanksgiving and joy dancing through my head!

2008-12-23

2008-12-24T07:34:00.003-05:00

I awoke early today, which was a signal blessing! I had my chapel time, wrote my Camelot Journal and Holly Journal entries and penned my UPI article for this week, all before it was time to join Mick for a wake-up cuddle and our Morning Offering. I decided to write about my childhood memories of Christmas for today's column. It was fun, looking back and remembering!

I got a call from Dianne S, who planned to go with me to Images Salon for her cut and color, as I was preparing to drive to the Salon and become a purple-haired lady. She said that she was concerned about the weather up her way and had canceled. The great thing about that is that just after she cancelled, a client called up Images with a sob story about a relative coming to their home for a visit with a horrible haircut. The client was in tears. “No problem,” said Jazz, bring her right in!”

Dianne’s concern may well have been accurate. Later in the day, Romi and Gary left to drive up I-71, which is how one gets to Avalon from here, to travel to Ohio together. Romi is having car trouble, so Gary volunteered to drop him off at his brother’s home on his way to visit his Mom and sisters. They got halfway to Cincinnati and were stopped cold on I-71. For four straight hours they moved about 100 feet per hour. Finally they saw a chance for a U-turn and drove back to Camelot where they will spend the night. They will try again tomorrow. It is supposed to continue warming up and will be in the fifties tomorrow. That should be better!

It rained all day, in 33- to 35-degree F temperatures. There was no ice in the rain. However the ground and roads had been frozen solid by sub-zero temperatures for the past several days. As the rain hit, especially on some exposed surfaces like bridges and overpasses, it turned to ice. People were driving too fast, and they got into trouble in record numbers.

I had no trouble at all, thank you Lord! After I became purple-haired – which I love! – I had a slow and delicious lunch all by myself in the bar at KT’s. There was a long wait for a table, and I like bar booths just as well as dining room tables. Fortified with good food, I went on to the grocery, got myself an electric cart and foraged for a picnic butt half-ham, a stewing chicken and lots of items for creating the meals for Christmas Eve, Christmas Day and the eventual onslaught of Rueckerts on the 27th.

I was very fortunate that the grocery people kindly helped me put my groceries in Stanley, and when I got home, Gary ran out, sprinkling calcium chloride on the walk and back deck for me. He got me into the house safely and then got the groceries in. What a guy!

By bath time, I had baked the ham and stewed the chicken until the meat was off the bones and the carcass had disintegrated. The chicken and chicken broth will become chicken chili for the Rueckerts. The ham will be their entrée on their first night here. I found an interesting recipe for apple, pineapple and orange salsa which will go over the sliced ham.

Then I pulled the recipes for the other groceries out of our database – corn pudding, mashed sweet potatoes, peas with Portabella mushrooms, meat loaf, turkey hash and green bean casserole. I made a grocery list of the things I had forgotten and called Melissa with them. She will stop at the grocery tomorrow morning on her way down from Avalon. We’ll have a grand time together cooking in the morning and afternoon, at the end of which we should be all set for Christmas food. On the day after Christmas, Mick and I will punch up the other recipes in readiness for the Rueckert clan's visit of the 27th through January 2nd.

In the cracks I took a couple of gifts I ordered for Melissa that had come in today, just in time, whew!, and put them in gift bags. We're all ready under the tree now!

I never did get back to the computer today! Bath time came late as it was, but it felt super great to have our plans for hospitality so far advanced. I marvel at how we seem to slip into Christmas, with so many chores and errands on our minds, all of which get done somehow. It will be sweet indeed to come to the end of the afternoon tomorrow, have a bath and then proceed into the peace of the actual events of Christmas, starting with the Midnight Mass. I will sing my heart out!

I offered the closing prayer at the Gaia Meditation tonight. Then Mick went into the kitchen and sliced the ham to freeze until after Christmas. And he cut up the turkey for the turkey hash and the chicken for the chicken chili. We’re ready for tomorrow’s cooking! Here comes Christmas!

2008-12-22

2008-12-23T07:05:00.002-05:00

Melissa and I sat down after Morning Offering and chewed over the logistics of Christmas Day and Rueckert Family Gathering food. We caught Gary on his way out the door to spend his work day serving at The Cracker Barrel and asked if he might lend Mel his bedroom for New Years Eve night, since he will be at Valerie’s. Mel is giving up her usual room to Tommy and Mary for their visit, and wants to spend New Year’s Eve with us. We have the Christmas Day cooking figured out, but are still scratching our heads over the family visit’s food. I think we will eat out a good deal during their visit, or call in some take-away food.

Mel finished her present wrapping and then took off to see to her chickens and the cats on Avalon, who have been braving the cold weather upriver at the farm. She left behind some presents for me to sign the "to and from" tags and place under the tree, and a container of homemade cookies which I immediately hid, as per Mick’s firm instructions. He cannot contain himself around cookies! And we want them to serve our guests on Christmas Day!

I spent my morning and early afternoon at Absolutely Salon, getting a much needed massage and a manicure-pedicure. I got home at almost 2:00 p.m. and had lunch. Most irritatingly, in prying a recalcitrant omega-8 pill from my pill holder, I scraped the brand new enamel on my right thumb. Rats!

I came upstairs intending to work on my UPI column for this week, but found three separate e-mails from Mary, my sister-in-law. She has been thinking about our time together and making lots of good suggestions for how it will go. She wants to attend a couple of concerts, and for the next ninety minutes I came to discover that if there IS a source of such community information available, I can’t find it! Then I spent the rest of the afternoon writing her back on the dozen or so topics she covered.

By the time I had finished, I found that she and I are beginning to fill in the blanks of our days together in ways that will be relaxing and enjoyable for us. We now have a trip to see “Light Up Louisville” planned for one night, where we’ll walk down Fourth Street and Main Street - me in my wheelchair - and see all the lights before eating somewhere downtown. We have one night at Nancy’s restaurant, the L & N Bistro and the reservations are made for that. And we have pizza planned for New Year’s Day’s football glut. There is a trip to walk the old trails at Spring Mill planned as well, with a meal at the old inn there afterwards.

This is the first time in all our years of shared holidays that Mary and I have sat down ahead of time and collaborated together to make our time more fun. It’s time well spent, I think.

Mick and I had a refreshing bath together before coming upstairs to enjoy a date! Yum! Our sharing had real fire, and I reveled in it. Soon Mick was awakening me out of my somnolent afterglow for dinner and the Gaia Meditation, at which I was supposed to offer the closing prayer. However my prayer began and ended with zzzzzzzzz so Mick offered the prayer instead! This was not my best moment!

2008-12-21

2008-12-22T07:51:00.004-05:00

Happy Winter Solstice! It was certainly a cold one here, with wind chills below zero. But what a treat it is to see the sun shining! It is the first sunny day in a week or more!

I know that just before Christmas is a nutty time to start slimming, but this is when my personality shell agreed to do that so I have started. Today I cut my Sunday treat in half – one Sausage McMuffin instead of two! And for lunch, one half-sandwich instead of two. I am glad that my personality gave way on this and agreed to cut back, because I have reached the magic weight of 175 pounds. I call it magic because it was at that weight that I decided to slim down in 2001 or so. I did the same thing then, cutting my portions in half. Hopefully it will work and I will have an uneventful time losing again.

I do have an additional challenge this time, and that is that I cannot exercise any longer. Exercise resulted in three stress fractures in a row to my right foot, so I had to stop walking several years ago. My difficulty in exerting myself at all is absolute, currently. If I try to garden or do the stretching exercises I used to do, the symptoms of nerve pain in my back and shortness of breath are acute. My doctor gave me pain medication so I could garden, but as with all pain meds, I am sensitive to it and in this case got a really nasty itch which was worse by far than the pain it was supposed to eliminate!

Ah well! Fat or thin, well or ill, my heart is the Lord’s and I can still work for Him each and every day, both by what I do and by who I am and how I live. I hope only to serve my Beloved, and that prayer is answered daily with a resounding YES! So I live in gratitude and thanksgiving!

The service at St. Luke’s was delightful today. We sang carols and lit the fourth Advent candle on our big chancel wreath. The very last candle will be lit on Christmas Eve! I love this church and its people so much! They are so quick to help and so loving in every way!

We sang at the chancel steps today, which required me to move my stand, music and myself. I could not do that by myself in the time allotted, and at my previous parish, which I attended for 37 years, I would not have been able to sing. At St. Luke’s, one person moved the music stand, another took the music, and I had more arms to hold on to than I had hands for getting down those stairs. Praise the Lord for good people!

When Mick brought me home, we sat down to lunch along with the first of our two films, Traitor, with Don Cheadle and Guy Pearce. It was both written and directed by Jeffrey Nachmanoff, who created a rich, thick, varied texture of derring-do and spy-versus-spy. Cheadle was excellent as the man who is far more than he appears and Pearce and the surrounding ensemble supported his twists and turns beautifully. Who is the terrorist and who is the hero? Watch it and see!

Mick napped for an hour between shows while I read and finished working the Sunday puzzles. And Melissa arrived, intent on working on her Christmas gift stockings. She went down to the basement to do so, while Mick and I watched Wanted, another action film starring James McAvoy and Angelina Jolie as student and teacher in a school for assassins called The Fraternity. Seldom have I seen a film fuller of brutal violence. Still, the plot had legs and we enjoyed seeing the complex film unfold.

It has to have been a great deal of fun to work on this movie, because they filmed all over Europe, one beautiful location after another as the backdrops for the relentless action. And the sound track was excellent, as were all the production values. Was the story far-fetched? So what! It was most entertaining.

In the break, Mick and I went to the grocery, where I bought the food ready-made which I had neglected to make from scratch, not feeling well enough to cook. Melissa came upstairs to help me get the baked beans in the oven and re-pot the slaw and Gary, who was just in from a very brisk walk in Bernheim Forest, got the trays ready and cut the cheese to go on the kielbasa and bratwurst which Romi always brings as our traditional fare for the Winter Solstice ceremony.

With the supper preparations in hand, we poured wine for everyone and had the ceremony. It is short and sweet, but meaningful. We were inside because of the severe cold, so instead of the bonfire, we lit a candle and turned off all the lights. Then we chanted,

“This is the night, the longest night,
The longest night of the year.
What shall we give to the night?”

Then someone would shout out, “Hunger” or “Violence” or “Politicians”. And we would reply, “Hunger – BAH” and push our hands and arms up and out to banish hunger into the night. We repeated the little chant until we were all out of things to give to the night. Then we gave thanks for all the good things that reamin to gladden our day.

I sang “In the Bleak Midwinter” for the ritual. I love the last verse of the hymn,

“What can I give Him, poor as I am?
If I were a shepherd, I would bring a lamb.
If I were a wise man, I would do my part.
But what I can, I give Him – give my heart.”

We were still eating our dinner when Tobey arrived with his wife and two children. They are on their way to Kansas to spend Christmas with relatives. We were delighted to see them.

They had a miserable journey here, first stuck in traffic because a semi had overturned ahead of them and then rear-ended during the traffic jam, so that they had to wait for the police and report the incident. That and the cold made the trip from Virginia to here a long one!

Jim and Gary went out to help Tobey get his maimed trunk open, and miraculously it both opened and would close again! Thank you, Lord. Melissa did some quick moving around, putting herself in the compass room, which has one bed, so that Tobey and Jennifer could sleep in her room, which has a double bed. The children will sleep in the upstairs guest room.

Tobey has long been one of L/L Research’s best friends and volunteers. He has graced many of our Gatherings and he started the Relistening Project some time ago, his aim being to create an on-line record of the exact text of all the 106 Ra sessions, without any of the deletions of personal material which the printed books have. He is almost finished now, with only eleven sessions to go! Tobey has also been working with Jeremy, Gary and Steve E to get our activist site, www.bring4th.org, ready for its Christmas Day launch. So it was wonderful to be able to offer him and his dear family hospitality.

Romi offered the prayer at the Gaia Meditation tonight.

2008-12-20

2008-12-21T07:46:00.002-05:00

It was cold and then colder today as arctic air moved our way. Consequently, Mick did not adorn our roof lines with lights, but instead he lit our front hedge and the fir tree next to the front porch. It looks very festive indeed!

After Morning Offering I settled into working on Buke T’s question on distortion. By bath time I had sent off my response to Gary to send on to her. I greatly enjoyed working on that question, as I was able to steep myself in TLOO material all day! It makes for good company and provokes many a thought.

I also wrote three more thank-you notes, hoping to stay even with that seasonal honor/duty as Christmas nears. I have only four more notes to write to catch up with the bounty of gifts which has already come my way this Christmas. People from all over send me gifts – sometimes complete strangers to me physically. But if they read and enjoy my work, they can’t be strangers!

After Mick and I had our bath, we welcomed Romi and John F, a new visitor to our group, who drove up from Bowling Green, Kentucky, a two-hour drive away. He is a college student with a very good understanding of our work, having studied it intensively on line. Gary also joined us. We enjoyed our round-robin talk around the circle and then a peaceful, powerful silent meditation.

Gary worked on the B4 web site today with Steve E, its webmaster, and we set the time of high noon on Christmas Day for me to cut the ribbon and open the site! Please do log on to www.bring4th.org and sign up as a member! There are lots of ways to communicate all set up and ready to go. Gary is so stoked about it! I can’t wait to see the new site! He, Tobey W, Jeremy W and Steve E have been working with the site in test mode for the last month or so, and hopefully they have found each and every glitch!

I offered the Gaia Meditation prayer at the end of our silent meditation tonight.

2008-12-19

2008-12-20T08:10:00.003-05:00

This was a most unusual day! We broke a weather record over 100 years old by topping 70 F. And Mick was out in it all day, bagging leaves. He is up to 209 bags of leaves for this customer, and still has her back half-acre to clear. He will definitely break his record, which was 230 bags last year, when he completes the job tomorrow!

It was raining to beat the band for much of the day. Mick said he was bagging snow, rain and leaves!

I stayed inside and kept dry, except for going out to cuddle Dan D. Lion McCarty-cat, who prefers his front porch “house” when the weather is wet. I wrote 5 thank you notes for gifts already received. Then I finished my research on “distortion”. I am ready to respond to Buke’s question now.

I realize that I could answer these questions off the top of my head, and my response would be close to accurate. However I want to be fully accurate in representing the Confederation point of view. So it is worth it to me to do the research. I do not charge her for this research, just for the writing time.

In e-mail:

• I sent Gary notice that I was writing three friends for their new contact information. Their cards came back “unable to deliver”.

• I thanked Diane P for her gift of a very interesting book called The Magus of Strovolos. The ET info in it jibes completely with the Confederation message, which I find fascinating.

• I responded to Sydney S’s invitation to lunch together and share some girlfriend time soon enthusiastically and asked her to choose a day after January 6th. Sydney and I were friends all through college. She's remained an academic ever since, and teaches languages at U of Louisville.

• I sent Doris S’s list of open appointments to Mick and asked him to choose a day for us to meet with her. She is our business advisor.

• I answered Terry H’s question about distortion. Synchronistically, he had gotten stuck on that concept while translating the channeling session which was held on 12-20-1998. He will use that channeling – in Chinese – for his Christmas cards.

Mick and I had a lovely date tonight and then napped before coming down to dinner and some episodes of House. Mick offered the closing prayer at the Gaia Meditation tonight.

2008-12-18

2008-12-19T08:14:00.002-05:00

We are moving fully into the glory of the Christmas spirit now! Today the house was filled with the tantalizing aroma of Melissa’s baking and Mick got up on the roof in the late afternoon rain and secured the lights that outline our gabled and complex roof lines to make our beloved Camelot light up like a gingerbread house!

Melissa also finished the present wrapping and put the gifts under the tree to make a very festive display. Her every package is a delight to study, with berries, rose hips, evergreen and pretty bows and ribbons on each package. It will be a loss to open them, for they are truly works of art. I am so grateful to her for this, as it brings my wonderful Mother back to me. Here’s a poem I must have written thirty years ago, when my Mama was still alive:

“Jesus Christ, come to life
Jeannie/Jason, Mother, Wife,
To both of you, Earth and divine,
Thanks for giving us Christmas time.

“The elegiac, somber tones of winter now draw nigh,
Yet in that deepest darkness, the Son of Man arrives,
Clothed in wooly blanket, the ox and ass nearby
Nurturing his human-ness, praising God on high.

“I used to take for granted all our Christmas spirits’ wealth
The mistletoe and Christmas lights, the gifts to wrap in stealth
And though I’m older, now I see she gives all of her self.

“One winter, Mama will be gone, and I shall be full sad
For Christmas in her house is all the Christmas that I’ve had.
All the glorious packages, all the moments sad,
All the potlatch sharing, with a heart so glad.

“It isn’t that my family neglects or rejects Love
But rather that my Mama outpaces all who move
While father and son-in-law “Bah Humbug” soft they prove
Though their names are on our presents their Scrooge-ishness disprove.

“We always go to midnight mass, to worship and to sing
Glad hymns of exultation, great “Alleluias” ring
Then up at dawn on Christmas day to see what Santa sends
Mama’s hands cut Danish—so Christmas Day begins.

“Now, dear Papa, I mean no hurt to Thee.
You make the house aglow with lights, a colored harmony
You stuff the festive bird with yet another recipe
And in your own way, sometimes you’re so sweet I want to weep.

“But Mama, you’re my Christmas. “

So, thanks, Melissa, from the bottom of my heart, for bringing all that back to me! You’re the best!

While Gary worked in the office and Mel in the kitchen, Mick slogged through the wet and cold to work with leaves and more leaves. He got about half of the work done on his biggest leaf-bagging customer, who lives amid a forest and wants all her leaves bagged. Last year, the total of her bags of leaves was 230. This year he is up to 160 and says he may well exceed the record tomorrow when he attacks her back acre. Imagine, after all that, soaking wet, he started on our outdoor lights when he finished maintaining his equipment!

I finished researching a question for Buke on parallel lives and sent that off to Gary to send to her. Then I continued to do research on “distortion”, which is her next question for me. And in the cracks, I cleared my desk writing e-letters to folks who have moved, whose Christmas cards from us have been returned, to ask them for their new contact information.

Mel left with her sweet breads in hand to give to the people who have helped her with our tractor and farm truck on Avalon as well as the solar batteries, around bath time. Gary said good-night after the Gaia Meditation, at which he offered the closing prayer. And Mick and I toddled off to bed with sugar plums dancing in our heads! I love Christmas!