Reflexivity

After Dachau, Daniel Quinn
A Child’s Christmas in Wales, Dylan Thomas
Museum of Islamic Art, State Museums of Berlin Prussian Cultural Property
Snow Crash, Neal Stephenson
How to Think about Weird Things, Theodore Schick, Jr & Lewis Vaugn
The Singing Life of Birds, Donald Kroodsma
Memory is the Other Language of Light, Rax Rinnekangas
Cities in Flight, James Blish
The Voice of the Earth, Theodore Roszak
A Wrinkle in Time, A Wind in the Door, A Swiftly Tilting Planet, Many Waters, Madeline L’Engle
Honky, Dalton Conley
Crazy Horse and Custer, Stephen E. Ambrose
Letters to a Portuguese Nun, Myriam Cyr
Dzelarhons, Anne Cameron
Child of Her People, Anne Cameron
The Sacred Hoop, Paula Gunn Allen
Zami: A New Spelling of my Name, Audre Lorde
Playing in the Dark, Toni Morrison
Aquarium Fish, DK Publishing
A Call to Conscience: The Landmark Speeches of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr
Snow, Orhan Pamuk
Writing Down the Bones, Natalie Goldberg
Aloft, Chang Rae Lee
Soldier, June Jordan
Vasistha’s Yoga, Swami Venkatesananda (assigned by Enoch Page)
Jayber Crow, Wendell Berry
Eleanor Roosevelt, Vol 2, Blanche Wiesen Cook
Atatürk: The Rebirth of a Nation, Patrick Kinross
The Secret Life of Saeed, Emile Habiby
Women’s Bodies, Women’s Wisdom, Christiane Northrup
Wouldn’t Take Nothing for My Journey Now, Maya Angelou
Hawks in Flight, Pete Dunne, David Sibley & Clay Sutton
Loose Woman, Sandra Cisneros (autographed by the author)
The Skull Measurer’s Mistake, Sven Lindqvist
Origami Bridges, Diane Ackerman
The Carnivorous Carnival, Lemony Snicket
Comstock Women, Ronald M. James & Elizabeth Raymond (editors)
Wounds of Passion, bell hooks
The Last Report on the Miracles at Little No Horse, Louise Erdrich
The Hour of the Star, Clarice Lispector
In the Wilderness: Coming of Age in Unknown Country, Kim Barnes
Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen (analyzed by Zizek)
Lifting Belly, Gertrude Stein
Cloudstreet, Tim Winton
American Indian Myths and Legends, Richard Erdoes & Alfonso Ortiz (editors) (critiqued by Hymes)
Small Wonder, Barbara Kingsolver (Prodigal Summer)
In the Presence of Fear, Wendell Berry
Native Family, Edward S. Curtis
King Arthur in the East Riding, Simon Armitage
The Me in the Mirror, Connie Panzarino
Angel’s Town, Ralph Cintron
Women without Class, Julie Bettie
Purchasing Power, Elizabeth Chin
Nickel and Dimed, Barbara Ehrenreich
The War on the Poor, Randy Albelda, Nancy Folbre & The Center for Popular Economics
Freaks of Nature, John Callahan
Do What He Says! He’s Crazy!!! John Callahan
Half and Half, Claudine Chiawei O’Hearn (editor)
Notes of a Native Son, James Baldwin
Indian Killer, Sherman Alexie
A Window Across the River, Brian Morton
Illywhacker, Peter Carey
All About Love, bell hooks
Music: shantel &emdash; inside

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We went for a walkie-talkie along the Norwottuck Rail Trail…that is, we slipped and slid along the icy path in order to build our endurance for risk-taking and learn to better appreciate the stretches of life when we’re not either numb or in pain. (Relaxxx!) The complaining game got started early, but only as a reality check on my propensity to plunge too deeply, a necessary caution as I commit moreself (that’s, uh, myself and more combined, he he) to “a different kind of chess.”
After ten minutes of philosophizing, we arrived at a juncture with a (back, dirt) road. My companion opted for the road more traveled. We carried on until finding another woody path without ice, and ventured along several short routes.



We continued on, eventually coming to the point of decision – continue deeper into uncertainty (as in, the inability to pinpoint precisely our location, while maintaining a general trust in the destination) or retrace the path (having accomplished half the duration of exercise set as a goal). We agreed to return. Enough, already, for today! Once we hit the icy part again, ouch, someone’s neck got tweaked. Personally, I think its because someone was setting the standard for an academic paper Way Too High, as in St Peter being the only reader – a metaphor which to me indicates equating each act on earth with the ultimate judgment. Not so, I learned. If St. Peter is the only reader, then what is written, howsoever it is read, matters not at all. From complete and total accountability to absolute irrelevance in one metaphor! No wonder someone was so relieved to see that lumberyard signalling the end of the trail!



And, just in case I’d forgotten that I am not, really, always paying attention, he had to go and make a comment about the hood of my car. Hmmph!
Driving to the supermarket, he then tried to convince me that he had not enjoyed himself at all. He was not emulating the Jerry Seinfeld whining game. To accept this, I would have to recast our entire conversation in the same way this recut re-presents Mary Poppins as Scary Mary.
_____
ps – Hillary is looking good, and she and Barack both remind me of Dr. Martin Luther King: Remaining Awake Through a Revolution.

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I learned about Paul Erdös today. A mathematician, he was “famously eccentric” and worked “with hundreds of collaborators,” who generated a humorous tribute to him: a measure of collaborate distance.
There’s no way I’ll be in the running as any kind of eccentric, nor will I beat his record, but I wouldn’t mind a vast range of collaborations. Was just imagining work with Sangria Girl regarding turtles … (!), not to mention exciting projects gathering steam in other parts of the globe and cyberspace… the headiness of possibility is an energy I’ll have to monitor.
Of course, the God of Destruction and Regeneration will help keep me in check!

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(not that I have time for pleasure reading these days)

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The Intuitive Acupuncturist firmly pressed all five of her fingers around my tan t’ien: “You’ve got to feel that you’re connected, because you are!”
Tan t’ien: “refers specifically to the physical center of gravity located in the abdomen three finger widths below and two finger widths behind the navel.” Interestingly, the IA also mentioned the ming men, the location in the small of the back facing the tan t’ien. The ming men

“stands for ‘the door of life‘. Kai Ming Men means open the life door to stay alive. Ming Men as an acupuncture pressure point is located on your spine where is the most concave spot. To open Ming Men refers to convex “the small of the back” and make it bow out.”

Posture is important, with awareness of location within the body: “Ming Men is simply an area where, due to channel confluences, a person may be strengthened or weakened.”
I want to make a contiguous leap, now, between individual centering and group centering. Just as a person needs to balance around their own center of gravity, so do groups. Just as persons need to determine with their own consciousness how to relax into their purpose, groups have to establish some consensual acceptance concerning collective mission and task. I do believe we can do it!

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Today, my online life has taken me along this path:
1) Wanokip (facebook) posted a story on shopdropping, about which I blogged for future students (homework!): “even radical ideology gets commercialized”
2) after categorizing, I followed the tags to see what others’ (strangers) have been up to and found this: “’Definition of God’ – and it still leaves us with the job of living with each other through the unity of mystery”
3) which sent me back to facebook to comment to another friend who has listed his religion as “pseudopagain pantheist” – I’ve been trying to wrap my mind around the difference between panentheism and pantheism. According to wikipedia: “A panentheistic belief system is one which posits that the one God interpenetrates every part of nature, and timelessly extends beyond as well. Panentheism is distinguished from pantheism, which holds that God is synonymous with the material universe.” Hmmm.
4) then, I returned to the “job of living together” post with all those cool quotes and read the comment after, which led me to: shoreless oceans of incorruptible wealth
5) which, I have to say, is overly religious for me yet still rich with the kind of sentiments I hold, to wit, the final line of a poem:

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The moon matters, too.
Today is a full moon (99%). “Campus Lady” (whoever she is) says,

“…the Moon, Sun, Mars, Jupiter and Pluto will align into the shape of a Pentagram. This is an auspicious time. The Sun is arriving at the same time Pluto makes his grand alignment with the Galactic Center. Jupiter only visits this area every 12 years. And Pluto only shows up every 250 years, and he does not stay long
This alignment is the beginning of a 26,000 cycle. Then you add the Full Moon. This alignment only happens every 6,500 years.”

She exaggerates somewhat – probably using a bit of regression to assume simultaneity.
The coincidence of a full moon and winter solstice is not so rare – on average once every 29 years. The last perfect match was in 1999; the next one will be in 2010 – and then there will not be another one until 2094!

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A quarter of a century behind the curve, but right on time for me: The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. (Also online at h2g2.com)

“Ah,” said Arther. “This is obviously some strange usage of the word safe that I wasn’t previously aware of” (1979, republished 2005, Del Rey, p. 49).

Zaphod says quietly:

“I only know as much about myself as my mind can make out under its current conditions.” (p. 144)

Don’t Panic!
“Perhaps I’m old and tired,” [Slartibartfast continues], “but I always think that the chances of finding out what really is going on are so absurdly remote that the only thing to do is to say hang the sense of it and just keep yourself occupied . . . . What does it matter? . . . I’d far rather be happy than right.”
“And are you?” [asks Dentarthurdent].
“No, that’s where it all falls down, of course” (p. 193).

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Oh dear. :-/
The “ideal” acupuncture treatment is ONE needle. The idea being that a) the person being treated has clarity about what they need and b) the person providing treatment knows precisely where to tweak the need.
My average is three-four. I’ve one includes the treatments with a combination of brief pokes and static insertions over time, I may have reached or even (?) exceeded six of those minute stabs during one go. But I’ve never been privy to the grand total of SIX (!) needles: both sides of the neck, both feet, and both hands. “I decided to treat both sides today,” said the Intuitive Acupuncturist, “I don’t usually do that.” My issue of the day was r-e-g-u-l-a-r-i-t-y. Seems this matter must be broached from many angles. Simultaneously.
That, or I have no freaking idea what I “ought” to be focusing on for these treatments. Yikes! The upcoming trip to Jerusalem was on my mind (along with various associated potential consequences), my dad’s health (mild stroke last week), family shenanigans in general….oh yes, teaching, writing, researching, staying sane in systems that become more obviously insane the more I learn how to perceive functions, effects, consequences….
Balanced with excitement over the conference presentation, progress in the discourse/dialogue of my students (despite their disgust with the wiki), visions of how to improve both the technical and pedagogical aims of teaching through this combo of online-and-face-to-face, not to mention a possible theme for the spring’s ENG112:

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