I wasn’t going to post tonight; I was just going to tool around and see what some of my old blog buddies are up to. I take a long overdue look across vast oceans and see that Mike Golby is moving his blogabode, and Andrea James is folding up one of her tents and taking up major residence elsewhere.
Something stirring, shifting. I thought it was just me, but it’s not just me. Shelley’s moving and she’s got half the wayward bloggers I know moving in with her and becoming Wayward Bloggers. They’re changing servers, taking on new faces and focuses. Frank Paynter’s moving in with Shelley. I read s somewhere that Ray Sweatman is too.
I head over to Lorraine O’Connor’s place to check out if she’s on the move again. She’s moved around so many times that I got tired of changing her link on my blogroll. The ol’ girl (she’s even OLDER than I am) is still there, but she’s going through some kind of malaise as well. I’m telling you, it’s the strings. We’re all strung out together here, and, for the moment, we’re vibrating a little out of sync.
OK, everyone, repeat after me: Ohm. Oooohhhhhhmmmm. Let’s get that Unified Field a little more fine tuned. Get those spheres harmonizing.
I have a lot of work ahead of me updating my blogroll after everyone gets settled in. It’s way out of date anyway, and I ‘ve got a list of female-founded spots I’ve got to get around to including. Burningbird’s rant got me fired up about that one.
Meanwhile, for my own information, I’ve been Googling to find out more about audio hallucinations. I found this incredibly relevant article, which started me wondering about just how many “problems” that are diagnosed as psychological really have their bases in physiological anomalies — everything from outrageous hormone levels to atrophied ear drums or such. We are, after all, mostly fragile flesh. Well, actually mostly water, but you know what I mean.
Meanwhile, I get no answer at Tom Shugart’s. Oh oh. Is that a broken string? Or have I been out of tune for so long that I missed his move?
I’m feeling a little left out, since I’m not moving off b!X’s server and that means I won’t be one of the way cool Wayward Blogger group. Maybe they’ll let me be an honorary member.

It seems to be that, every so often, I find myself looking around at my life and realizing that I’ve arrived at somewhere I really don’t want to be. I guess that I shouldn’t be surprised, since, after all, I tend not to set goals or target destinations for myself. I’ve always just gone where life takes me, and I make the best of where I am until something prompts me to take stock and seek change.
Over the years, I’ve changed jobs, hobbies, social circles, and personal relationships. I’ve changed hair color, hair styles, and living arrangements. But there’s always something that precipitates the change, some disturbance in the field, some lurch of lobe. And then my snake-mind begins the shedding of old skin.
It’s happening now, prompted by a series of emails about blogging launched into my space by bloggers I know and respect. It’s not what they said that’s propelling me toward change. It’s what I found myself saying. (*see below)
I don’t fit here, where I am, right now, in the corner of the blogworld where I wound up, after sailing in on b!X

My aunt’s wake over the weekend was noisy, and not the least of the noise came from the back of the funeral chapel, where my cousins and I sat in a circle, comparing the status of our various kids, ailments, and retirement plans. I’m a little envious of several of my cousins. One of them wasn’t even there because she and her husband were on a cruise to Bermuda. Another (along with her recently-retired husband) is building a house on an island off the coast of Florida, where they both will be spending lots of time when she retires. (I can barely manage to take a week off in the summer and go to Maine. But the good news is that they said I’d always be welcome to come and stay with them any time I want — when I’m free to do that, of course.)
For all of the things that my cousins and I DON’T have in common (I gladly moved away from our home town and associated values when I was 17 and continue to only go back for weddings and funerals; they all still live within easy driving distance of each other), our overlapping childhood memories seem to be enough to keep us feeling connected. Something about blood. And shared histories. And they make me laugh. (I guess that, unlike me, they inherited the genes that make their brains produce lots of serotonin. I

The full moon rose in the center of my bedroom window tonight, willfully defying the ruthless shadow stalking its path. In this darkest of nights, even that shadow could not negate the strength of its lucent presence. And, for the moment of a breath, light and dark were one.

It’s the night before the lunar eclipse. My cousin has just called to tell me that my Aunt Anna has died.
…………….
I have a close-up photo of my son and daughter standing opposite each other in front of a stand of summer-full trees. It was taken at her back-yard wedding several years ago. In the original photo, they weren’t standing that close; I used a photo editing program to separate them and then put them back together, closer, so that I could fit the photo in the frame I had. You can’t tell that I cut out and then pasted together the trees. branches, and leaves between them. The leaves and branches seem to blend together almost seamlessly. Something about fractals. (From here: A fractal is a rough or fragmented geometric shape that can be subdivided in parts, each of which is (at least approximately) a smaller copy of the whole. Fractals are generally self-similar (bits look like the whole) and independent of scale (they look similar, no matter how close you zoom in).
Yes. Just like “As Above, So Below” which….embraces the entire system of traditional and modern magic which was inscribed….in cryptic wording by Hermes Trismegistus. The significance of this phrase is that it is believed to hold the key to all mysteries. All systems of magic are claimed to function by this formula. “‘That which is above is the same as that which is below’…Macrocosmos is the same as microcosmos. The universe is the same as God, God is the same as man, man is the same as the cell, the cell is the same as the atom, the atom is the same as…and so on, ad infinitum.”
Yes, just like the String Theory that I learned more about watching NOVA’s series on The Elegant Universe: In order to solve some of the deepest mysteries of the universe, the rules that govern large objects like galaxies must be combined with the rules that govern small objects like subatomic particles.
According to String Theory physicist Brian Greene
String theory proclaims, for instance, that the observed particle properties — that is, the different masses and other properties of both the fundamental particles and the force particles associated with the four forces of nature (the strong and weak nuclear forces, electromagnetism, and gravity) — are a reflection of the various ways in which a string can vibrate. Far from being a collection of chaotic experimental facts, particle properties in string theory are the manifestation of one and the same physical feature: the resonant patterns of vibration — the music, so to speak — of fundamental loops of string. The same idea applies to the forces of nature as well. Force particles are also associated with particular patterns of string vibration and hence everything, all matter and all forces, is unified under the same rubric of microscopic string oscillations — the “notes” that strings can play.
In the Unified Field Theory, it all strings together. The old Harmony of the Universe thing. Rhythms of Vision (a resonating out-of-print book of which I have a tattered paperback copy).
We’re all tied together. All the more reason to be honest with each other. With whatever Fields in which we find ourselves entangled.
Jessica Lynch is trying to be honest. RageBoy is trying to be honest. Shelley is being honest about being honest.
If enough of us insist on honesty in our little pictures, will that affect that big picture that has been perverted by so much individual, corporate, and governmental dishonor and dishonesty?
Big picture, little picture. Fractals. As above, so below. A Unified Theory of Everything.
Strings.
…………….
Tomorrow night, I will go outside and watch the moon disappear. On Sunday, I drive down with my mother to attend my Aunt Anna’s wake and funeral.
And on Monday, I will put more effort into the little picture.
Sometimes life,
like a labyrinth,
leads you
where you have to go.
You think you make choices —
this man or that,
some child or not.
You set your alarm,
choose your shoes,
gather friends for tea,
count your changes,
until one day a corner comes,
slipping you a glimpse
of those strings of stones
shaping your shadow’s edge.
And sometimes,
perhaps,
on a perfect day
under a perfect sky
a perfect black cat
with eyes like glowing stones
races across your path
and waits in the early ferns
for you to cross hers.
copyright Elaine Frankonis 5/03

The flocks are forming to the north,
flying in the face
of a hungry hunter