Category Archives: Assistance

Discretion and Honour

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Posted by on in Assistance, collaborating, Community, Education, Historical, impediments, Inspiration, Personal Values, Service Activities, Social, Spiritual, Striving

April 9, 2024- I received one of the last pieces of my personal health and security tools, in the mail, yesterday. It is a system that will bring me back to the U.S., and to my Home Base, if I am injured or become ill, whilst in any other country. It will help in finding medical or dental providers in that other country, should they become necessary. It also connects with Intelligence services, to let me know if conditions in a given nation warrant staying away from that country. These are in addition to the advisories issued by the U.S. Department of State.

I was, for a time, considering a visit to the capital of a country, which I have found intriguing for many years. The latest intelligence shared is that the capital is the only place in that country that is relatively safe. In other words, the place is not exactly stable, and I wouldn’t be doing anyone a favour, by showing up there. Having promised my loved ones that I will not go pell mell into harm’s way, I have crossed that country off my itinerary, for a journey this coming autumn.

Today was the Day of Valor, a national day of remembrance, in The Philippines, and also called Araw ng Kagitingan (Bataan Day). It honours the Filipino and American soldiers who fought in the Battle of Bataan. This was one of the first battles in the Pacific, during World War II, that I learned about as a child-even before I knew much about the Filipino people. My uncle and cousin told the narrative about Bataan, and the Death March that those captured by the Japanese were forced to endure. Many were killed, and a relative few made the 65 mile force march to Camp O’Donnell, in the central part of Luzon, unscathed. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bataan_Death_March The importance of this event today is to underscore the value of resilience and fortitude, which lead to unity, to the thriving of The Philippines, or for the success of any nation.

So, the concepts of discretion and honour were much on my mind today.

Vested

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Posted by on in Assistance, collaborating, Community, Personal Values, Service Activities, Social, Spiritual, Striving

April 7, 2024- One of my occasional naysayers was online, this morning, leveling a mild gripe about a conflict between one of my scheduled activities and what she wanted me to do, on that day. In fairness, I had offered to help with her activity, about a month ago, and then the less popular event was scheduled. So, I went with the latter, knowing that there will be plenty of people to help with the first activity.

That is the downside of volunteering. Although no money changes hands and it is strictly a discretionary activity, there are egos and potential hard feelings involved. Some organizations even make a show of “firing” their volunteer staff, because not enough deference is shown to the higher-ups. There is at least one such supervisor, in an organization with which I offer my time and energy, who would love to send me packing. She is reduced to the silent treatment, as all hands are needed on deck-and my hands are still strong.

Truth be known, we who offer our services, gratis, are vested in the success of the endeavour. As I mentioned yesterday, every volunteer activity in which I do at least some good is a happy place. So, if my naysayers and critics find fault with what I do, or don’t do, that is on them.

It All Happened

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Posted by on in Assistance, collaborating, Inspiration, Personal goals, Personal Values, Social, Spiritual, Striving

April 5, 2024- Quite a deal, that New Jersey earthquake. It didn’t seem to bother any of my extended family, at least those on social media. It also didn’t seem to have inured anyone. Still, it was an earthquake, in New Jersey. What’s next? Snow in San Diego’s Gastown?

A lot happened here, also, but it was all related to making flight arrangements for autumn-and paying a huge bill for something else. The weather was rather wonky, so it didn’t bother me to stay in, most of the day and evening. I learned of another connection between my Baha’i friends and the local Red Cross team. A friend was helped and I got in a workout. Otherwise, it was me, my spirit guides and the keyboard.

As fulfilling as my full-on days are, I enjoy a day of relative solitude, now and then. So, even when it all happens, all at once or in short order, as long as there is a breather in there somewhere, I am good for another three or four decades-God willing.

As I write this, more snow is coming down. Maybe San Diego isn’t out of the woods yet.

Continuous Flow

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Posted by on in Assistance, collaborating, Community, Family, Inner Struggles, Inspiration, Matters of Faith, Personal goals, Personal Values, Service Activities, Social, Spiritual, Striving, Travel

April 4, 2024- My cousin, John, came by this morning, just before I woke up. He and I were walking, along a rough, rocky path, which had a drop off into the ether, to the left, and a series of other rocky paths, to the right-each of those being separated by drop offs into the ether. He asked if I wanted to stay over there. I told him I had many things to do, before I went there to stay. That was when I awoke.

John and I were quite close, as boys, and into our young adulthood. He visited me, when we were both in VietNam, in 1971. He and his wife, Mary, helped me when I was unceremoniously evicted from my apartment, in February, 1977. We kept in touch, though I last saw him at my brother, Brian’s, funeral, in 1994. John passed away three years ago, this June.

I was not at all jarred by this dream. It just affirmed for me that I have many things for which to remain in this life, from a wealth of good friends-one in particular-to several goals, over the next six years and beyond. About an hour after I got myself together for the day, two friends were asking for assistance, and I was able to help both, in small ways. From there, I retrieved items left behind at yesterday’s job site, then took part in a shelter simulation with the area Red Cross team. This evening, there was a session for healing and assistance prayers, at the home of some Baha’i friends.

I also got some input into cosmic energy trends for the rest of the year, which will help in planning activities, both here at Home Base and further afield, including international travel. There will be some small adjustments made, with regard to dates of overseas journeys, and close consultation with friends in each country is crucial. That should be the case, anyway, but the energy trends amplify that need.

Things are bound to be fast-paced, in certain months, and like cold molasses, in others. Energy will be continuous in flow, though, regardless.

“I have promises to keep, and miles to go, before I sleep.”-Robert Frost

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/42891/stopping-by-woods-on-a-snowy-evening

Streamlined

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Posted by on in Assistance, collaborating, Community, impediments, Personal Values, Social, Spiritual, Striving

April 2, 2024- Something to consider: It now takes eight hours, or less, for one bank to transfer funds to another. This has long been a goal, one purpose of which is to minimize the amount of bet hedging by less than responsible customers, who write checks or transfer funds, thinking that “There might be a business day that will pass without sufficient coverage, but surely no bank will be so efficient as to catch on so fast.”

Guess what-Most banks do catch on-and within the aforementioned eight hours. I am glad to have set up a system to meet obligations as they arise, and not expect the institutions to dawdle, and hold off their end of the deal. It’s just nice to actually be able to face lightning-fast challenges, with like response.

Despite the misconception that progressive governments are lenient and inefficient, especially in the face of rapid change, I have noticed that everything from tax returns to the actual arrest and deportation of miscreants who are here under false pretenses is actually being handled in a more streamlined manner. Some of it is moving more slowly than other aspects, but things are moving along. A lot of the COVID-based, supply chain shortage-caused mishandling of people and goods is clearing up.

Then, there are the squatters-who move into another person’s home and cry to sympathetic judges for relief, when they are removed. Recently, a Venezuelan national tried to recruit people from his country to engage in mass squatting, saying that he knew judges who would back him up. He has been arrested in Ohio, on Federal charges, and sits in Geauga County Jail-pending trial in a Federal court, where he does NOT know the judges. Many states are now streamlining their laws, so that police can protect homeowners, even if they are away from the home for as long as six months.

Just because people are kind, nice, considerate does not mean they are disorganized and weak. It’s worth remembering this, in the weeks and months ahead.

Resurgent

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Posted by on in Assistance, collaborating, Community, Historical, Matters of Faith, Personal Values, Service Activities, Social, Spiritual, Striving

March 31, 2024- There were a lot of plastic eggs, in baskets on the breakfast tables, at Post 6, this morning. When I picked one up and shook it, gently, to see if there was anything inside, the event’s organizer got a bit huffy and said “You’re all lucky we even decorated the tables!” Fair point, I guess, and in the scheme of things, jelly beans or chocolate bites inside a decorative Easter egg merit a .005 in importance, on a scale of 1-10-especially in the days of mass homelessness in Gaza and considerable destitution right here in the U.S.

What matters is faith. As a Baha’i, I hold firmly to the notion that spiritual truth is revealed progressively. The earliest books of the Bible deal with individual recognition of the Divine, as do the Teachings of Krishna. Moses stressed the need for family and tribe to be reverent. Zoroaster taught recognition of the power of Good, of Light. Buddha was all about detachment, even through suffering. Christ taught, and modeled, forgiveness based on love. Mohammad called for the spiritually-governed nation. Baha’u’llah calls for the spiritually-governed planet. None of them have taught that it is laudatory to slaughter one’s enemies. Moses and Mohammad make allowances for self-defense, but that is as far as actual scripture goes-at least as far as I can determine.

Christ, through His Resurrection, taught that no one is beyond hope. Each of us can be resurgent, and can transcend our limitations, even when appearing spiritually dead. None of us can really know and judge another soul, and so it is always best, on an individual basis, to offer love and support to those who are errant. Justice is best left to those in government, so long as it is applied in an even-handed manner. Any one of us can change for the better-and be resurgent.

That’s my “lay sermon” for this Easter, and I’m sticking to it.

Prognosis

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Posted by on in Assistance, collaborating, impediments, Inspiration, Personal Values, Social, Spiritual

March 30, 2024- Astrology is an inexact science, to the extent it is scientific. Astronomical energy and physics are taken into account, certainly, but even the most fervent astrologers admit they may be off, in their estimations. This is mainly because no one knows, with certitude, where one constellation ends and another begins.

That said, the astrologer to whose webinar I listened this afternoon gave an assessment of the rest of 2024, and a broader picture of the five years that will follow, that indicates the pace of change will, for the most part, accelerate. There will be periods, he says, of lightning-fast, perhaps dizzying, change and other periods of sluggishness. In other words, it’ll be more of what we have been experiencing, just more intense in degree.

It was explained that we have been in the energy cycle of the Piscean Age, roughly since 1 A.D. and that sometime between now and 2150 there will be a total shift to the Aquarian Age (yes, that Age of Aquarius). Generally speaking, this will mean a shift from individualism to the collective; from top-down decision-making to a two-way flow of information ( both horizontal and lateral, as well); from separation to unity. The early glimmerings of this shift were seen as far back as the late Eighteenth Century, with the American and French Revolutions, the Mesoamerican and South American Wars for Independence and the Enlightenment. The recent scurrying, in some areas of the planet, including some parts of Europe and the Americas, towards retreat into authoritarianism, are a natural human and fear-based reaction to this shift, but these are destined to be short-lived-even if their immediate effects cause much suffering and destruction-as did the excesses of the European Fascists and the Stalinists/Maoists of Eurasia and East Asia did, in the second half of the 20th Century.

He spoke of this coming month, April, as being a time of particularly jarring change. Of course, this is no more specific than the old “weather forecast” of children’s games: “Light, followed by darkness”-but at least it won’t come as a total shock, if April 20-21 feature some sort of cataclysm. Okay, I will be in and around Home Base I. Conversely, September and October are forecast to be a period of sluggishness. That’s fine by me, as my current plans are to be in the Philippines and east Africa during those months, and I want to be focused on whoever, and whatever, is in front of me.

That is the nice thing about inexact predictions: If they come to pass, we have been forewarned. If they don’t, then there is more time to prepare for what is about to happen.

The Hermit Shares Space

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Posted by on in Assistance, children, collaborating, Hiking and Nature, Personal Values, Social, Spiritual, Striving, Travel

March 29, 2024- The three-year-old girl wrapped her arm around a pole, while standing just above the stairs at the rear door of the shuttle bus. It was a crowded bus, and even with her watchful grandmother standing between her and the door, she was taking no chances.

Hermit’s Rest is the site of the westernmost of Mary Colter’s eight buildings that grace Grand Canyon’s South Rim. It is in an otherwise nondescript section of the Rim Trail, set away from the stunning overlooks that are signature to the canyon’s edge. Louis Boucher would have preferred it that way. He was a prospector for gold, and probably uranium, in the days before the national park was established. His trail, now called Hermit Trail, leads down to the Colorado River, some 8.7 miles one way. (If I were to hike to the river, it’d involve a camp out at Hermit Camp-not far from where Louis made his home.)

The gateway to the end of one line.
Mary Colter’s Beehive Oven, resembling a Hopi outdoor oven
South side of Hermit’s Rest store.

Neither man-made nor nondescript last long at the Canyon, though. A short walk through the trees reminds the visitor of why the trip was made, in the first place.

The Inner Basin, from Hermit’s Rest.

I began the visit at Hopi Point, where the last trip was cut short, owing to a flash flood in Tusayan, which necessitated most of the visitors having to go back to Grand Canyon Village and tend to their lodging. I was able to make the journey around the eastern route, to Cameron, and then back to Prescott, via Flagstaff. Not everyone was so fortunate, and many ended up spending the night in one of the lobbies of hotels within the park.

Today, there was wind, but no water, so all of us were able to go clear to Hermit’s Rest, or to one of the other viewpoints. I walked from Hopi Point to Mohave Point, taking in the following scene, among others.

The Colorado River has a demure presence, beyond The Battleship, from Hopi Point.
If you think that living on the South Rim is easy, this juniper pine begs to differ.
A view from The Abyss.
The Abyss also shows the effect of weathering, on the topmost layer of limestone.
Here is a view of Monument Creek, flowing into the Colorado River.
From Pima Point, a zoom lens affords a close-up of the Colorado River, without a long hike!

Finally, just when you think you’re done with the Canyon, here’s the next big thing:

The first question says it all.
If your answer is “Yes”, happy hiking-and camping!

I am not beyond that sort of adventure yet, but for today, it was time to head back, so onto the shuttle buses I went, including from the Village to the Visitors Center, which was the bus where the little girl and her family crowded on. We all got to go where we had planned, today. No rain, just wind.

No True Veils

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Posted by on in Assistance, collaborating, Community, impediments, Inner Struggles, Matters of Faith, Personal Values, Service Activities, Social, Spiritual, Striving

March 28, 2024- The divers found two bodies, yesterday, in the chill of the Patapsco River. Men who had gone to work, on the overnight shift, Monday night, found themselves trapped in a car, as the chain reaction of errant cargo ship goes out of control, hits bridge supports,bridge buckles and collapses, men die-plays out. A miracle can save four others, but the clock ticks on. Families, yet again, are shattered. A young woman hugs her husband, who escaped death by the narrowest of margins, all the more striking, as he cannot swim. They mourn the loss of his crew mates, and join in the sorrow of those families. A city, a state, and five nations are in shock.

Across the globe, 143 people died in an attack on a Moscow nightclub. Moscow, Nova, Orlando, Manchester, Las Vegas, Bali, What is it about entertainment venues that incenses political extremists? Is it a matter of “How dare they have a good time, when I and mine are going through horror?” Is it a matter of “God hates those who relax”? We see the aftermath. Other extremists have killed over 30,000 people, most of them innocent of wrongdoing, in the name of retribution. A world is sliding into shock.

There is no barrier, really, between me and any given counterpart in Gaza, in Moscow, in any one of the nations that lie south of the Rio Grande/Rio Bravo. We all have our legitimate work to do, trying to make the world a better place.

There is no veil between any of us and those who left their bodies behind, either willingly or because their presence is inconvenient to the aims of a certain relative few. The departed still have work to do, in their spirit forms. They may assist those they love or they may exact retribution on those who tormented them. Some probably do a little of both.

There are no real veils or barriers between us. It just makes a convenient dodge, to pretend otherwise.

Circles

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Posted by on in Assistance, collaborating, Community, Education, Inspiration, Personal Values, Service Activities, Social, Spiritual, Striving

March 26, 2024- The young man proudly showed anyone who was watching just how he was cleaning the coffee house’s tables, with small circular motions, so as to not miss any spots. He completed the task in ten minutes, then went outside with his mentor, and cleaned the patio tables, in seven minutes.

I’ve known J since he was 5 years old. He turns 23 this week. Three days a week, he has a mentor to drive him around to venues, such as this coffee house, where I had breakfast this morning and works the other two days at a sheltered workshop. One of the happiest people I’ve ever known-J is reaping the fruits of his gentle nature.

This evening, about forty of us formed circles, to share stories of inspiration from natural phenomena and from sacred spaces. My group shared stories about spirits coming to comfort an ALS sufferer; the inspiration gained from looking at shapes of clouds; a woman’s acceptance of her children’s Faith, towards the end of her life; a father’s encouragement of his daughter’s pursuit of the arts; a woman’s observation of an animal mother’s love for her babies, whilst visiting a zoo; a hiker’s encounter with spirit forces, in a canyon of a state park (my story).

A Cherokee story teller also told of animals coming together to decide what gift to give the human being, who seemingly had none of the qualities which they had. They gave him fire-to keep him warm, let him prepare his food and purify his water. The sharing circle of the animals was only partially successful, as the colourful crow singed his feathers, which became black, and the ribbon snake singed his scales, becoming all black. Only the spider managed to capture fire, by putting it in her web basket, and inadvertently teaching the human to weave baskets, as well as to keep a hot ember in a safe place.

There are things that do not fare well in a circle: Logic, trying to get from point A to Point B, and, hideously, the firing squad-which should not exist at all. Mostly, though, a circle is all inclusive, and gives everyone in it a chance to participate, to be considered, to belong.