Get your own
 diary at DiaryLand.com! contact me older entries newest entry

00:42 - 05.09.06
Blues
Well, we broke a temperature record from the 1920's today dear diary. It was somewhere over 30 C/mid 80's F. Maybe not so warm where our more tropical neighbours are concerned, but hot enough for the no air-conditioning crowd up here at the 51st parallel. The same parallel as London England or very close to it, mind you. Of course they have the Gulf Stream to moderate their temperatures and provide considerably more rain, but one can't ski, skate, snowshoe or toboggan on that. Most of the city folk were fixated on the Labour Day Football rivalry between us and our sister city to the north - Edmonton. This year we won. There is a sports bar about 3/4 of a mile from our home and we could hear the cheering each time our side scored.

My day was divided into two parts. The pragmatic side was nipping out to the drug store for essentials before it got too warm. Some housework, but mostly paperwork for the pre-writ election assignment and a lot of correspondence with friends. Fed and watered my youngest and the cats. Watched "Save the Last Dance" for the full length of the movie and then caught part of the movie Mesmer. Why? Well actually because the leading role was played by Alan Rickman. In a recent interview he had stated the being the villian was not all that fulfilling for him and that he preferred other roles. I thought I'd see how he managed a change of persona. I actually got caught up in the story instead, since it touched on a lot of historic bits that have always fascinated me. Mesmer was an early patron of Mozart, actually playing music with him. He played a glass harmonica himself as part of the therapy he used to treat his patients. His career was a bit of a roller coaster, but when he left France in disgrace it was just before the French Revolution. Had he stayed, he would have met madame la guillotine. That was the fate of many of his critics and contemporaries. I spent some time checking the scenes in the movie against the facts presented on the internet. Mesmerism eventually transformed into hypnotism over a century or so to be finally an integral part of Freudian therapy. Don't have much use for Freud as you know dear diary, but that is another post. What I found most entertaining about the entire story is that Mesmer's work began with a dissertation he wrote for university about the effect of tides from the moon and planets on human health. Uh huh.

The other part of the day was spent trying to get over the "Stationary Direct turn of Pluto" blues - "What is in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet". Romeo and Juliet. I am still quite confused and frustrated by the determination of some family to not allow me to express myself as freely as they do. I know my opinions don't match theirs but that doesn't make the opinions - or me - any less in value. We even have freedom of expression enshrined in our Charter of Rights, for heaven sakes. Copied it from the US and the UN don't you know. It wouldn't even bother me as much if there wasn't the snideness or the putdowns with it. Healthy debate is good for democratic structures. Debate of issues is simply not being allowed by some family members. It's the nastiness and the sneakiness - my one sister and my brother's partner both make certain that there is no one within hearing range when they go at me either alone or together. Whine with cheese, I know. I decided that I would look for uplifting stories in my e-zines or newspapers to help me refocus and rebalance my emotions. No point giving power over you to people who only want to make you feel bad about yourself, is there? A little article tucked away in the lifestyles part of our newpaper caught my eye. It was linked to schooling children - a new form of giftedness being offered. I liked the colour assigned to the story - indigo - so I went off searching the web to see what I could find. These children seem to be gifted on a different scale than the current definition.

What one has to be very careful with though, is checking the background or biases/agendas of the writers. The first site almost completely turned me off. Written by an adult who was using that title for themselves in order to validate their use of violence and abuse of others. Sorry there is another term for that type of behaviour and it usually comes with jail time attached. A couple more sites seemed more reasonable, so I read further. What popped into my mind as I was reading the definitions, were phrases I had read decades ago. You see, one of my science projects was measuring the effect of sleep deprivation on metabolic functions. I recruited some of my girlfriends, my sisters and my parents to be my test subjects. Over a period of a couple of weeks everyone was required to do a set of exercises I had put together for them, basically my gymnastics' aerobic warm up and calisthenics,every evening while having their hours of sleep cut down from what they normally slept to about two hours a night. I measured their heart and respiratory rates and the length of time it took for those to return to resting states. Watched their efficiency while doing the exercises too. It took years for my parents to forgive me for that one, but they were relatively good sports about it.

Anyway in the course of my preparatory research, I checked a book out of the school library called "There is a River". I must have been in a hurry but, in my defence, the book was in the correct section of the dewey decimal system on the physiology of sleep. It wasn't until I got home and read the first chapter that I realized the book was about Edgar Cayce. The Baptist Sunday school teacher who was a trance prophet in his spare time. I was completely hooked by the end of that first chapter, although I didn't think I would be allowed to incorporate any of that information into my biology experiment. After I was finished with the school work, I read as much as I could about the man because a lot of the readings he did were for people who had health problems that weren't treatable by any means known at the time. In addition, he made several prophecies about a number of future manifestations, including the definition of the Indigo and Crystal children discussed in the one little article about a meeting for parents wanting more tools to deal with children with this new temperment. It is interesting that the phenomenon seems to be linked to autism. It may be that instead of pathologizing the behaviour, another approach is being developed to the benefit of both children and society. Serendipity times two.

Anyway I think a nap is in order so I can process everything I've learned today. Don't you dear diary. At least I don't feel too blue anymore.

previous - next

about me - read my profile! read other Diar
yLand diaries! recommend my diary to a friend! Get
 your own fun + free diary at DiaryLand.com!

web stats