Schrag Wall: PPP Sisters

 Another multi-step image creation post that is being hampered by having three devices and at least two types of image files trying to talk to each other - or not 😱. Kind of ugly, but if I can get the images cleaned up I will resend.

Anyhow the image with this one, which their Mom sent:

Which I then converted to this and made a few further adaptations that filled the background

To finally arrive at this version: 

Shooting From The Hip

Well, actually from the upper arm 🤪! I have just had my third COVID-19 Pfizer vaccine. Yup the big 3, so I am feeling pretty invincible. My oncologist suggested I do so since my history of two slow dances with multiple myeloma and a couple of attendant stem cell transplants finally left me cancer free. But I  am taking Revlimid prophylactically, which tossed me into the immunocompromised group.  So I asked my oncologist his advice regarding getting the third shot and attending my college class 50th reunion in mid-October. His response? “Go for it!”

But my getting shot #3 is not really about me or my reunion plans.  It is about the 7 come 11 “too young to vaccinate” kiddos-grandchildren etc., with whom I come in contact. Not to mention the anti-vaccination individuals who inhabit adult bodies but who seemingly - as one of my favorite professors/ministers asked a classmate who had asserted that only his immediate family would be allowed into heaven - “Son did you check your brains at the door?”

I haven’t written about the tenet Oppose Harm yet, but this is one of those times. When people choose to check their brains at the door and refuse to get vaccinated I feel compelled to oppose the harm that their behavior does to everyone around them - despite the fact that I am personally vaccinated to the gills and hence unaffected by their foolishness. So this post is my bit to “oppose harm.”  I don’t want to debate other’s freedom to not get vaccinated for whatever strange reasons they have created for themselves e.g. “I don’t need no stinking mask/vaccine.” It is certainly their right to put themselves at risk. It is not, however, their right to put the rest of us out there on their fringes of foolishness. So either get vaccinated or have the courage of your convictions and stay away from the people you can infect. 😱

Foster Harmony

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Before I begin these next few posts I need to acknowledge that, yes, I do write about “the four tenets” an awful lot. But that is because I spent a lot of time thinking about, and reading about, various approaches to a “theory of everything.”  Einstein’s theory of general relativity and unified field theory, string theory, “brane” theory, etc. Fascinating stuff. And I continue to follow, from the perspective of an interested amateur, each new “ah ha!” moment from the Large Hadron Collider, CERN, Hubble, neutrino collectors, etc.  Very, very, fun stuff. But it wasn’t too many years ago that I realized, somewhat reluctantly, that the jaw dropping reveals from physics and astrophysics were all focused on describing the physical nature of the universe - “what is.” The problem was, and remains, that while learning “what is” remains a fundamental question for humanity, it is not the one that most intrigues me. My question is related, but more existential in nature: “What does it mean?” So my own questioning shifted somewhat. Not to exclude “what is,” but to include, and foreground, “what does it mean.” Distilled Harmony is the result of that new - for me anyhow - train of thought. The four tenets weave together to create the more encompassing worldview that I call Distilled Harmony. It is that dynamic interaction among the tenets that continually draws me back to further consideration of each tenet and its role in the construction of the existential whole. That said, let’s turn our attention to Foster Harmony.

Foster Harmony is the dominant tenet in the Distilled Harmony worldview. The importance of Harmony is perhaps best demonstrated by considering the lack of same that we have been experiencing over the last few years - by reflecting on what Harmony is not.

Harmony is not about winning. I am reminded of a common scene in "action-adventure" dramas. It occurs when the protagonist and the antagonist have battled to a standstill. They separate, and one says to the other, "This isn't over!" and vanishes upstage right.

No. For the good of us all "this," whatever it is, has to be over. 

The declaration that "this isn't over" says we are still enemies and you and I will return to continue our conflict. Discord will seek to overthrow Harmony. And often the discord arises in the name of some past wrong, which was, perhaps, at some time, a legitimate grievance.  But here is the uncomfortable, endlessly repeating, lesson of history - at some time in history we each - no matter what our heritage - were both an oppressor and a victim, both the slaver and the slave. So any claims to "victimage" and related recompense all depend upon which particular slice of history you wish to focus on.  According to the stories I have been told, [my 23andMe data are due back in a couple weeks] my own family history traces back at least as far as Russia under the reign of Catherine the Great, empress regant of "All Russia" from 1762 until 1796 – the country's longest-ruling female leader, and also an advocate of the Enlightenment. She allowed Mennonites [my people] to settle within her borders. However, once she died, less "enlightened" members of the nobility drove my people out to Switzerland, and later here to the US.  So, in the name of "This isn't over!" do I demand restitution from "All Russia"?  To which Putin would logically assert "That wasn't us! That was czarist Russia hundreds of years ago! Don't try to blame me!" 

So take your family and track them back as far as you can - but certainly for those of us currently here in the USA, - way past your lives here in "the New World" as arrivals from "the old World.” No, ideally back to prehistoric Europe and Africa. We apparently retain Neanderthal genes. So did some slighted Neanderthal dude hurl “This isn’t over!” to the Homo sapien family gathered around the fire in the best cave? For indigenous peoples the challenge would be to track as close as you can get to arrivals from the Bering straits some 10 to 15 thousand years ago, or, as more recent research tempts us, contact along more southerly sea routes, also 10 to 12 thousand years ago?  Now find a point or two along your history when you were the victim - we all had those points - and define your oppressor. Now, do you want to pick a fight with them for grievances millennia ago? Because "This isn't over!"? Then pick a couple of points when your people were the oppressors. Those too will be there. What, if anything, do you owe to the victims of your ancestor's actions thousands of years ago? Your call.

But as we consider what our most harmonious choices could have been as either victim or oppressor millennia ago, we need to remember another dominant aspect necessary for fostering harmony - regardless of the era - forgiveness.  You, personally, in your present existence, may have made the decision to seek new beginnings along a harmonious path of life. Kudos! That is wonderful. But it is no guarantee that others in your life have made the same decision. Their behavior may still reflect the same hyper-competitive Lombardi-esque "Winning isn't everything, it's the only thing!” or the Trumpian "My way or the highway" mentalities. Those are both still incredibly common attitudes in America and around the globe. If we truly wish to foster harmony we need to be able to forgive excesses. Forgive, yes, but neither excuse nor enable. And I'll get to those options in the upcoming post on Oppose Harm.

So what is Harmony?  To save you the trouble of clicking back to a quote from a couple of posts ago on Musical Miracles let me restate:

"If a tiny vibrating string is the fundamental unit, is the essential building block for everything in the universe, there are profound implications for the landscape of the human heart and mind and soul.  If string theory is right, then it isn't just tiny particles or huge interstellar regions that are made of strings - it is everything. It is also you and I. We are composites of unimaginable billions of tiny vibrating strings. Vibrating strings make musical notes, groups of notes make chords, groups of chords make songs and melodies. We are made of music, we are literally walking, talking, thinking, sleeping and crying symphonies. (Moi, The God Chord, p. 10).

We have harmony within us, we are harmony, it is the natural state of our existence.

So, in conclusion, the tenet Foster Harmony directs us to banish the flames of blame, to declare this is over and we can begin again to behave in our own life, in the present for which we are responsible, to truly seek the harmonious path. To Foster Harmony it is often necessary to use phrases like: “I agree. I didn’t know that. I see your point. Why don't you go ahead?” Similarly we need to fight the inclination to demonize those who have recently wronged us. There are harmonic paths to the righting obvious wrongs, and as I said above, I will touch on those down the road a bit on the post regarding tenet number four: Oppose Harm. For the moment however, the point is that Fostering Harmony is most often manifested as an act of compromise between and among sincere, forgiving , advocates; it is not a victory dance following some form of confrontation and forced capitulation.

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Distilled Harmony Reprise

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Any brief examination of the teachings of the world’s religions and philosophies reveals an inclination to define how one should lead a “good life” or follow a pathway to an afterlife that is the reward for having lived that “good life.” I have never been comfortable with that notion. Seems more like child rearing than finding your place in the universe. So I lean more towards discerning beliefs and behaviors that allow for, or describe, a comforting and comfortable universe - sort of the existential equivalent of lying in a hammock, well-fed and well-loved, with a good book and a tall glass of lemonade, or dozing before a warm fire on a cold winter night.

I realize that seems terribly simplistic, but does life really need to be as complex, demanding, and complicated as the various sages, philosophers and prophets would have us believe? I am inclined to think not. So, I have worked my way around to the four tenets of Distilled Harmony, about which I have written to you on many occasions. However, Distilled Harmony is a kind of moving target. Life, and the world, doesn’t stand still. Knowledge, and our behavior in light of that knowledge, continues to evolve, and so I continually reflect on how the four tenets; Foster Harmony, Enable Beauty, Distill Complexity, and Oppose Harm, evolve, function and interrelate in that changing world. So I am going to take a few posts to review the four tenets of Distilled Harmony and how they stand here at the midpoint of 2021.

The world is certainly a different place than it was a dozen years ago when I put up a post on Schrag Wall at the end of August, 2009 when Barack Obama became the first black President. Then Joe Biden was Vice President, I actually went into a classroom to teach, and American involvement in the war in Afghanistan was finishing its first decade. This year I am in my first full year of retirement, so no need to go to any classroom, physical or online, Biden is president and has ended our involvement in Afghanistan, Kamala Harris brings a number of firsts to the office of Vice President, first female and first of blended African-American and Asian-American heritage. From a "big picture perspective" that would seem to reflect a somewhat smooth evolution - but when you factor in the Trump years, with their penchant for arrogance, violence and confrontation and the incredible discord in the nation as a whole, it was anything but. 

So far this year, it has been a sort of “chutes and ladders” time, a sort of one step forward, two steps sideways, one step back kind of world with the pandemic, the election, the Olympics, etc,. However, if a worldview like Distilled Harmony is worth its salt it should be able to take those little bobbles in stride! We shall see. “Watch this space.” I'll start with the first and dominant tenet, Foster Harmony.

See you soon.

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Schrag Wall PPP: Flower Faces and Backstory

So I was headed back down to the Carolinas to see Daughters, Granddaughters, and their spouses. It was going to be a couple of weeks so naturally I packed up all my markers, glasses, compression gloves, etc. to work on a drawing of Andrea and Sam's girls, Maya and Ellie. Which, of course, was the only thing I forgot to pack.  Well, talk about all dressed up with no place to go! However I had brought another PPP project that I was going to work on when I finished Maya and Ellie.  It was this flower pic of a Paul Minnis painting that hangs in our front hall :

So I messed around and created this template:

Which eventually led to this drawing: Flower Faces

I think I am making my blogging software crazy with this post. Images may be too big, etc. If the post bounces back I will try to find a way to shrink them.

Musical Miracles

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 I think I have mentioned here before that my older brother, Jim, died of a glioblastoma in 1984, when I was 37 years old. He was 41. Yeah, too young anyway you look at it. But I don’t want to dwell on the injustice of brain cancer, no point, no explanation. Instead I want to reflect on the miracles that music can work even in the dark hallways of a ravaged brain.  We were a musical family, probably as the result of my mother’s ability to play the piano, a bit by sight and certainly when helped along with the plethora of song books stashed in overflowing piano bench. Singalongs by the piano were an important part of growing up in our family. My Dad took a “summer teaching swap” with a colleague out on the west coast back in 1954 and 1956.  So we piled into our ‘54 Chevy Bel Aire and camped and sang our way from central Ohio to Southern California - three kids, two adults, round trips of several thousand miles, roadside table breakfasts and lunches - twice! It was great!

We all kept music in our lives while growing up. Choir, glee club, high school and college musicals. Brother Jim’s unique contribution was his ability to coax pretty much any tune you wanted out of his mysterious collection of harmonicas, shiny silver things with little plungers on the side that let you shift keys. He was a magician on those mouth organs.

One of the more insidious affects of glioblastoma is that it steals your speech, your ability to talk, to converse, to present your point of view. Talking was another cherished activity in our family. When I went to spend some time with Jim, and his jewel of a wife Linda, during what turned out to be the tail end of his illness, and his life, I was undone by his aphasia - until he and I discovered that he still could sing. And we sang it all. Show tunes, folk songs, little snatches of opera. But it soon became clear that we really hit our stride with early rock and roll - 1950s and 60’s. Buddy Holly, The Everly Brothers, Elvis, Nat King Cole, some Ray Charles, a sprinkling of Patsy Cline and just a touch of Hank Williams. Jim never missed a note or a lyric. But then when silence descended it was cruel and seemingly complete.

It wasn’t Don McLean’s dire “the day the music died.” I knew then that, as it is daily demonstrated in my somewhat obsessive attention to music,  the music never really dies. Rather it reaffirms the central role that music plays in the experiencing and expression of our lives. As Jim and I sang our way through our personal version of The Great American Songbook, faces and places flashed through my still healthy mind and, I fervently hoped, through his cruelly disordered one.  In the 37 years since Jim died, nothing has occurred to disabuse me of my firm belief of the centrality of music in life. When I settle in for the concert I construct each night to sing me to my dreams, I will sometimes select a specific genre, artist or era, the music of which I know will call up those faces, places, emotions and memories that I wish to accompany me down into gentle sleep.  It does not always work, but when it does it proves worth the effort.

Still, I often wonder where the music lives? And then I remember, I have answered this question before.  In my book The God Chord: Physics Meets the Landscape of the Heart, I assert the following:

I, however, am becoming increasingly convinced that string theory does lend significant predictive and explanatory insight into those seemingly "non-physics" concerns. If a tiny vibrating string is the fundamental unit, is the essential building block for everything in the universe, there are profound implications for the landscape of the human heart and mind and soul.  If string theory is right, then it isn't just tiny particles or huge interstellar regions that are made of strings - it is everything. It is you and I. We are composites of unimaginable billions of tiny vibrating strings. Vibrating strings make musical notes, groups of notes make chords, groups of chords make songs and melodies. We are made of music, we are literally walking, talking, thinking, sleeping and crying symphonies. (Moi, The God Chord, p. 10).

I need to pay closer attention to myself.  That is where the music goes - everywhere.  It may well be that certain functions are more comfortable in various spaces in our body - folks love to point to spots in the brain and say "This is where language skills reside. And over here is locomotion, strength, and our ability to sense our body location in space.  And then here we have . . . " But then we see people who have been in accidents or encountered disease that have laid waste to that part of the brain but, 'lo and behold, those various supposedly isolated functions find some overt flowering - somewhere, somehow.

Maybe it was singing with Jim that, in part, taught me that music was everywhere, 'tho I never got around to understanding it, and writing about it, until a quarter of a century later. The music remained there, inside him, and together we could still liberate it - if only for a little while. So, to paraphrase Jurassic Park, “Music finds a way.”

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