Monday, March 20, 2006, 6:05 PM It is still amazingly light. Geese are flying overhead honking. It is snowing, windy and cold. Brrr, cold. I am out walking. Because I had that strange dizzy spell at noontime today, I did not drive anywhere to walk, and I am going to walk in segments, assuming I can walk. I am walking around the block on the road, rather than plowing through the snow. But I dislike this, as there is traffic and no sidewalks, so I have to walk in the road. There is a snow bank beside the road, so if a car is to close I have to leap into the snow.
My hands become too cold to write so I put both them and the computer in my pocket. I am so used to writing while I walk that it does not seem unusual, special, or dangerous to me. I've been doing it for years and years.
I deeply dislike walking along the road in my neighborhood, and much prefer woodland trails or at least the paved sidewalks at Radisson. I am really not looking forward to living in Detroit at all EXCEPT for Keith and Graham and Sam and Joan and ML and so on. Gail, who is in Jackson.
The place where I walked down to the river is posted, the one at the bottom of the hill that I walked to from home. So I was trespassing when I went there, but I did not break and enter, I simply stepped over the chain. If the gate were closed and locked and I sawed open the lock, that would be breaking and entering. It is one step worse than trespassing. But I would not do that, because it would cause harm.
I do make a sort of infrequent habit of trespassing, maybe 5-7% of my walks. This is because I feel that I am doing no harm to simply walk through. I try to minimize any damage I might do. But I have gotten in trouble of number of times, and I don't like that, so I do it less often. And some of my favorite trespassing places have been made more secure against trespassers, perhaps in part due to me, but not too likely. So I can't go there any more.
I am nearly back home. I seem strong and balanced, though I do not yet feel normal. I decide it is safe for me to walk around another block, but my hands are very cold.
When I called the doctor's office about my dizziness and the spinning room, she asked if anything were making me anxious and I said no, no more than normal. But I suppose sitting up until 1:45 AM sorting stuff and feeling that I'm making no headway and will never finish could be a form of anxiety. I was thinking panic attack, and I was feeling fairly calm, the thing that was making me anxious was the DIZZINESS itself. I was starting to imagine all sorts of dire things it could mean.
My friend Judy got dizzy and few weeks later, she was dead of ovarian cancer.
My father got dizzy and collapsed on a walk with my brother and me and that was when his cancer returned.
And he died.
I guess I really AM anxious about my house and getting out of it, I'm so BAD at this sort of thing. It makes me unhappy and I feel worthless. Still, would that make the room spin around me VIOLENTLY?
I am nearly home again. I walked less than half my required 45 minutes (for fibromyalgia). But I'm taking a break. Making stir-fry. Cabbage, zucchini and beef. Then hopefully walk more.
I'd prefer to walk somewhere other than on the stupid streets in the dark with traffic and no sidewalks. But I am not feeling up to par, and don't want go anywhere. I am feeling significantly better than I was. Though after my two blocks, I felt more tired than usual.
I'm meeting with my poet-friend Janine tomorrow for breakfast at 8:30 AM so somehow, I have to have a few poems ready tonight--TONIGHT--since I have no printer here, I have to email them to her to print.
(I'd better set the alarm before I go for more walking, as I might forget otherwise!)
I am not (NOT!) rich, but we are all rich compared to the people spoken of in the Bible.
Hope I can sleep tonight!
Live simply that others might simply live. I like that but boy I'm no-good at it! All my life I've aspired toward it and failed. Though I've often lived much more simply than other people, that's not really enough. I'm not sure what enough IS.
I am out walking again. It is snowing again, still. In the dark, I can't see the snowflakes, but they show up in the street lamps and the car headlights.
I feel almost normal again, still slightly funny, off. Little belly ache, almost gone. Little "weak", though certainly able to walk.
In spite of the snow, there are holes in the clouds where I can see the stars. The snow is falling gently, like in a Christmas card.
I'm walking the less traveled streets where ever possible and it is quiet and peaceful. Occasionally, I hear a voice. No dogs barking, which is nice.
Back to the question of God. How does one know God's will?
• by reading scripture
• by reading other theological works
• by attending church
• By talking to God or His or Her emissaries.
This reminds me that when I was talking about God, I never had time to discuss all the points that were whirling about in my head. Shamanism believes that the world is peopled with spirits and that these spirits can intercede on behalf of people.
If one were to see God as the mind of the universe, all things then partake of that mind. (It confuses issues of good and evil, though, a separate point entirely).
If God Him or Herself is vast ad unknowable, but exists in all things, perhaps we can communicate with God
• inside ourselves, if we can reach the spiritual part of ourselves
• through animate and inanimate physical beings and objects
• through "spirits"
Dreaming is a time-honored way to talk to God, as is visions, prayer, and meditation.
Talking to God seems relatively easy (although doing it well may not be), but listening to God is another matter altogether, as you know. The object of prayer is to have a dialogue with God, a two-way conversation.
Of course, who am I to attempt to talk about this when there are trained professionals? That would be like my giving advice to the Lovelorn or Heloise-type household hints. I probably should just be quiet about it before I get in trouble.
Not being one to take advice, even my own, even when good, I would say one thing further. Though a combination of listening skills and other methods (praying, dreaming, visions, priestesses, etc) is ideal to engender a dialogue with God, the more direct the link the better. That's my opinion, anyway.
Forgive me for going on about it.
(Of course, nothing is solved by all this rambling. I don't even know that I answered your initial questions.) (I have mostly only questions, not answers anyway, questions and tentative opinions.)
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