Red Sky at Morning…..

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Posted by on in Community, Historical, impediments, Inner Struggles, Personal Values, Striving, Travel

March 18, 2022, Newnan, GA- The scene this morning, over Lake Redwine was beautiful, if a bit ominous.

Sunrise at Lake Redwine, Newnan, GA

My brother, Dave, and I headed out early towards Andersonville, the site of the largest Confederate prisoner-of-war camp (1864-65) and of the modern National Prisoner-of-War Museum. We drove down, past the central Georgia cities of Columbus and Macon, through the smaller communities of Buena Vista and Ellaville, getting gas at the former. Once we got to the village of Andersonville, a kind lady gave us directions to the park itself.

We found ourselves blessed with cloudy, but not rainy, skies for most of the time we were in the outdoor Prison Site. Andersonville was established when smaller prisoner-of-war camps in Virginia and Alabama became overcrowded. Union soldiers, suspected spies and captured free Blacks were housed here, under increasingly fraught conditions. The facility was originally intended to house a maximum of 10,000 prisoners; at war’s end, 32,000 were incarcerated there. It was minimally-funded, and at various times during the Civil War’s late phase, prisoners were either housed in tents or were told to fashion their own accommodations, from whatever materials they could find.

Prisoners’ tents, Andersonville Prison for Captured Union soldiers

Monuments exist, in honour of captured soldiers from several states. Here is the memorial to Wisconsin’s captives.

Monument to Wisconsin soldiers, who were incarcerated at Andersonville.

The North Gate of the tightly-built stockade, in which newly-arrived prisoners were oriented to the prison camp, has been restored.

Entrance to North Gate of Stockade, Andersonville POW Camp
View of North Gate of stockade, Andersonville POW Camp

The facility’s main water source was Stockade Branch, a low-flowing, fetid creek. Dysentery and vermin were rife, and 13,000 people died at the camp, in only 14 months. Food supplies were meager. One miraculous event relieved the misery, somewhat. In August, 1864, a sudden downpour, accompanied by a lightning strike, resulted in a spring being opened. Grateful prisoners dubbed this water source Providence Spring.

Spring House at Providence Spring, Andersonville POW Camp

The camp’s commandant, Captain Henry Wirz, was a Swiss immigrant who had settled in Virginia and was sympathetic to the Confederate cause. He was alternately regarded as a fair-minded man, in over his head and an uncompromising brute. Wirz was singled out, after the war, tried for war crimes and executed by a tribunal.

Andersonville has a sizable National Military Cemetery, still in use for contemporary veterans’ burials. A freed prisoner, Dorence Atwater, worked with Clara Barton after the war, to identify those buried at the cemetery, from prison records, which Atwater himself copied and smuggled out of the facility, upon his release at war’s end.

Andersonville National Cemetery

The Prisoner-of-War Museum honours all American Prisoners-of-War, from the Revoutionary War through the Afghanistan Conflict. Exhibitions also contain information about Confederate soldiers held at Elmira, New York-a facility which was no better than Andersonville; Axis soldiers held at camps in the United States, during World War II and British prisoners of war held both during the War for Independence and the War of 1812. A display on Native Americans from the various “Indian Wars”, is included in the museum, as well.

There are spoken presentations by the late John McCain and Admiral James Stockdale, mirroring the overall message: “War is hell!”.

May the departed prisoners rest in peace, and may we soon learn the meaning of universal brotherhood.

Entrance to National Prisoners-of-War Museum and Visitors’ Center, Andersonville, GA

A Picasso Immersion

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Posted by on in children, Entertainment, Family, Inner Struggles, Personal Values, Social, Striving

March 17, 2022, Newnan, GA- The conflict in Ukraine brings up images of Pablo Picasso’s Guernica, at least for me. Thus today’s visit to the Picasso Immersion, at the Pullman Warehouse Exhibition Hall, in Atlanta’s Five Points area, was particularly poignant. Guernica, for the unitiated, is the large painting in the center of this montage of Picasso’s cubist works.

Picasso’s works, from 1890-1960,were largely his reaction to the horrific World Wars, Spanish Civil War and what he saw as the rise of materialism. Pablo Picasso had his own mind about the political reality of the day and would depict those he regarded as corrupt and decadent, in a monstrous manner-representing Francisco Franco, for example, as a pile of inedible food, in Guernica, itself named for a village in northern Spain that had been bombed by Franco’s forces during the Spanish Civil War.

Picasso was a varied artist, though, and was able to represent people beloved to him, in a more conventional manner. He wrote poetry as well, such as the autobiographical “A Lonely Road Is That I Walked”:

“I walk a lonely road, the one and only one I’ve ever known.
I don’t know where it goes, but I keep walking on and on.
I walked the lonely and un trodden road for I was walking on the bridge
of the broken dreams.
I don’t know what the world is fighting for or why I am being instigated.
It’s for this that I walk this lonely road for I wish to be
ALONE!
So I am breaking up, breaking up.
It is the lack of self control that I feared as there is something
Inside me that pulls the need to surface, consuming, confusing.
Being called Weird, I walk this lonely road for on the verge of broken dreams.
And so I walk this lonely road and so just keep walking still” – pablo picasso

Like e.e. cummings after him, Picasso created in a self-deprecating fashion. He was somewhat devoted to his children, who were the only people allowed in his studio, while he worked. From the 1920s until the end of World War II, he hobnobbed with the avant-garde, in the south of France, only occasionally returning to Spain, for short periods of time. He reacted to what he saw as crass materialism, by becoming a Communist after World War II and continuing to depict members of the economic and social elite, in unflattering ways.

Picasso has always been a source of fascination to me, although admittedly an acquired taste, and requiring of considerable pondering and rumination, as to the meaning of his surrealist work. This immersion event has whetted my appetite for exploration of other great artists of our time and of earlier eras.

There was no corned beef and cabbage for us, today. The crew gathered for St. Patrick’s Day dinner, at a Taco Max in Dunwoody, north of Atlanta, and enjoyed fairly copious amounts of guacamole-along with rather good Mexican dishes. The children have their own take on everything, much like Senor Picasso. I hope to see them reach for the stars and not suffer undue hardship. It was a rare, but most enjoyable visit with our Dunwoody family.

May art, and creativity, ever be honoured and encouraged.

The Trumpeters

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Posted by on in Assistance, collaborating, Community, Family, Hiking and Nature, Inner Struggles, Personal Values, Social, Spiritual, Striving

March 16, 2022, Newnan, GA- Three trumpeter swans, mother, father and son, make the rounds of Lake Redwine, an artificial lake around which many new homes on the west side of this relatively serene town in west Georgia have sprung up in recent years. I am here, for three days, visiting my middle brother and his wife.

The swans, for years, kept other water fowl, particularly ducks, from settling in around the lake. An attack on the mother swan, by a snapping turtle, three years ago, resulted in her losing her lower beak. This seems to have mellowed out the trio. They have turned inward, reverting to the cygnine behaviour of parents bullying their cygnet into leaving the nest, once it comes of age. So far, it has not worked. Dutiful son still looks after his mother, even if it seems she may want him to move on.

How close to human are these opposing behaviours? The difference is that the birds are acting on instinct. Humans, with the powers of reason and utterance, still manage to hold grudges and thrive on half-truths. I will not give any specific examples, out of respect to those involved, but I keep learning of families in which parents and children push each other away, and not always out of a desire to see the other become self-sufficient.

With the swans, there are winners: The offspring get to start their own family and the parents can hatch a new set of cygnets. With humans, the hits often just keep on coming.

Humility and forgiveness-are these so impossible?

For The Hostages, on the Ides

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Posted by on in Community, impediments, Personal Values, Social, Spiritual

March 15, 2022- It has been reported that some 500 people are being held by Russian troops at a hospital in Mariupol, Ukraine. 400 of these are residents of the area near the facility and 100 are a mix of medical staff and patients. The situation is a breach of all that is humane, but that ship sailed several days ago. For all the posturing about Ukrainian neo-fascists in the Azov Brigade, most, if not all, of the brutality that is quantifiable is coming from the invaders-not from the defenders.

This is a short post, as I have a very early wake-up, tomorrow. It is no less important, though, that the world is kept abreast of matters like this. The true horror of war is largely the stuff of how innocents are treated. So far, there is no sign of any adherence, on the part of the invaders, to those provisions of the Geneva Convention that pertain to the treatment of civilians, of noncombatants.

I say goodnight, with prayers for their safety on my lips and in my heart.

Pi in the Sky

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Posted by on in Assistance, distraction issues, Education, Historical, impediments, Inspiration, Personal Values, Social, Striving

March 14, 2022- It is noteworthy that the ancient Greeks recognized pi, the number that is the basis for determining the ratio of the diameter to the circumference of a circle and pie, the normally circular pastry shell that has been used as a container for honey, nuts, chopped meat and fruits, since the Neolithic Period in Egypt. Pi, which is 3.14 when rounded to the nearest hundredth, was first defined by the mathematician Archimedes, though the civilizations of India, Babylon, Egypt and China each made use of the concept. Welshman William Jones clarified its usefulness to circular measurement, in 1706.

Today, 3/14, is recognized unofficially, as Pi Day. That it is enthusiastically embraced by bakers and sweet-toothed people around the globe does not detract from the mathematical awareness brought about through this light-hearted embrace of a key geometric construct. Pizzerias have gotten into the act, with even the makers of rectangular pizzas claiming to have finally “squared the circle”. Along with chess, fun events like this have helped math-phobes get a grip on their aversion to numerical sciences.

I used to be one of those who hated math, mainly because of the overly serious way in which the subject was broached by so many teachers. I was fortunate to have been flashcarded to distraction by my mother and one of my father’s aunts who would come by almost every week. In time, the cosmic jokesters had me serving as a mathematics teacher, to the dubious benefit of three years’ worth of middle and high school students.

Over time, pi has ceased to be a concept lost in the ether and math has found its way into my treasury of skills. Happy Pi Day, sweet-tooth or not!

No Stigma

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Posted by on in Education, impediments, Inner Struggles, Personal Values, Social, Striving

March 13, 2022-

The workers in a Russian restaurant, in a large American city, found their place vandalized. There should be no stigma attached to their ethnicity or culture.

A Sikh family still mourns the slaying of their father and brother, twenty-one years after he was “mistaken for an Arab”. There should have been no stigma, even if he were an Arab, or just Muslim.

A well-groomed, well-mannered man, sporting a cowboy hat, enters a funky restaurant-bar, in a trendy West Coast town. The minute he speaks, “open-minded” people at a nearby table begin to snicker and offer ridicule. There should be no stigma, for a person’s life path and the persona that results from where one grows up.

Acceptance of others is a mirror of how each of us views self. Stigma is a mind trap.

Two Inverse Triangles

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Posted by on in collaborating, Community, impediments, Inspiration, Matters of Faith, Personal goals, Personal Values, Social, Spiritual, Striving, Travel

March 12, 2022- During this afternoon’s Web of Light meditation, (part of a monthly Zoom call), I saw an inverse triangle covering North America, and got a message that the three focal points were to be the purpose of my journeys this year. One is Florida-with Miami having more of a role in the itinerary than I had previously thought, and a clockwise traverse of the peninsula being in order. Orlando, and the theme parks, didn’t even register, but then again, I am not a huge theme park aficionado, unless children are involved. This works out well, considering that I had long been drawn to go to the peninsula after visiting with family in the Atlanta area.

The other two points of the triangle are Atlantic Canada and Alaska. These will be clearer in a couple of months. Mid-June to mid-July look to be the first and mid-September to mid-October, for the second. As the meditation also showed robust activity around Home Base, in northern New Mexico and in southern California, from mid-April to mid-June, I will be engaged in measured activity, a good part of the time. I didn’t get any insight on fire or hurricane response, unlike the warning I got two years ago about Alexandria, Louisiana, but it’s early in the season yet.

My conscious self asked, “So, Europe is obviously off the table this year?” The insight gave the meditative version of “Well, duh!”, and brought my thoughts back to healing and peaceful resolution of the conflict. Another inverted triangle appeared, with Africa at the bottom, Europe on top left and the Asia-Pacific region on the top right. These areas seem to be more in a long-term sequence, which will be more clear towards the end of this year. Five years seem to be involved.

Today, the most important time period in front of me, saw a goodly amount of planning for the next few weeks, with accommodations mostly set. I put in an hour on a school garden project, at a nearby campus. Visits to Rafter Eleven and Synergy capped off the day, with the latter being a mini-jam, my drum accompanying a guitar and a harmonium. Three others in the group were suitably forceful in their singing.

Despite all that the above seems to signal, I feel very much at peace and in charge of my life.

Lines of Guidance

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Posted by on in Assistance, collaborating, Community, impediments, Inspiration, Personal goals, Personal Values, Social, Striving, Travel

March 11, 2022- The focal points of my day were two: The beginning of a weekly study on the Baha’i principles regarding social action, which entail both ground-up and engagement of all elements, and a review of Astro Cartography, as it pertains to how planetary forces were aligned at the time of my birth and how that has effected my life, ever since.

I will have more to say on the former, as weeks go by, and we get more deeply into the transformation of our planet from a hotbed of contention to a home for all. That, of course, is a process that will far outlast the earthly life of anyone alive today, but begin we have.

Regarding Astro Cartography and how it affects my life now, there are places where my life draws more challenges and responsibilities and places where life draws relaxation and comfort. I seem to have chosen to live in more challenging environments, over the years, including my present Home Base, according to the chart. I can’t say I have all that many regrets, and Prescott will remain my base for some time to come.

The chart says there are places where I can be more relaxed and other places where I have to watch my back. This is based on lines of planetary bodies’ ascent and descent, in the skies above, and in terms of their energy. I don’t claim to really understand it all yet, but I can say that in certain places, the energy has seemed more heavy and elsewhere it has been light as a feather. There are places to which I have been drawn that have a festive atmosphere, others that are more instructive and still others that are both.

This tool is one of the things I ought to consult, going forward, as is my daily meditations and, in the final analysis, conditions on the ground on a particular day. The latter particularly pertains to places to which I feel drawn, on the spur of the moment, but for which travel arrangements need to be made months in advance-Phantom Ranch, in the Grand Canyon, for example, or the Dry Tortugas, at the southwest end of Florida. (The most remote areas attract crowds, which is understandable, given our species’ need to push all manner of personal frontiers.)

In the end, being peaceful and content, where one happens to be, is the best springboard for any journey.

Ecosynthesis

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

March 10, 2022- I read this evening that a property owner in our downtown area wants to build a six-story hotel, across from the Courthouse. The lines are drawn, in the public sphere, between those who think it’s high time modern architecture takes over and those who value the sense of history. Interestingly, but not surprisingly, the members of the former group are about evenly split between Prescott natives and transplants from other parts of the country. The latter group includes more transplants from urban areas, signaling that many people come here specifically for the Old West ambiance and the surrounding natural beauty. Many Prescott natives seem to take these features for granted, saying that one can’t eat or pay bills with history and nature.

Other communities, across the country, and across the globe, have taken this stance: Salem, MA has opted for high rise apartment buildings near downtown, the likes of which would be not out of place in several areas of Manhattan, or any number of European cities. Flagstaff and Tempe, in the name of “student housing”, have built large residential complexes in what had been rather charming neighbourhoods. Jeju, Korea, where we lived from 1987-1992, was virtually unrecognizable, when I revisited in 2019. It’s said that higher density is more efficient-and better for business.

I get a much more positive sense from striking a balance. History, even that which is only from the last century, is crucial to our sense of continuity, to our identity. Those who have been following this site since its inception know also that I favour well-tended natural settings. Nature teaches us the importance of balance and recognizing the interplay between serenity and dynamism. I am gratified that our City Council is oriented towards sensible growth, and has worked to protect a significant area of the Granite Dells, north of downtown. Likewise, the bulk of Prescott National Forest is being safeguarded from wildcat development.

On balance, history and nature do generate income and can co-exist with industrial and technological pursuits, given responsible use of zoning. I call this state of affair ecosynthesis.

Contaminated Minds

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Posted by on in children, collaborating, impediments, Inner Struggles, Personal Values, Social, Striving

March 9, 2022-

Bombing hospitals intimidates no one. It only confirms the notion that the bombers are of a toxic mentality.

Firing at children, who are running to safety, only endears the killer to those already contaminated in their minds.

Censoring information that is deemed contrary to one’s own preconceived notions fools no one-not those supporters who also believe in fairness, and certainly not those who are already opposed to the official narrative. It only shows that there is toxicity, even when the censor presents self to the people, as righteous.

The proof of contaminated minds consists of the lies, the duplicity and the corruption that permeates so much of what we see in many of the halls of power.

Are you not better off, cleansing yourselves?