Tag Archives: Iceland

The Road to Diamond, Day 190: Ever Connected

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

June 6, 2025- As I sat this morning, contemplating what to do, as a hiking plan was interrupted by unforeseen circumstances, messages came to me from the single most important soul in my life, thus far. I was to firm up both short-term and long-range plans, for service in Prescott and Bellemont and for visiting friends in Europe, come September.

Forty-three years have gone by, since Penny and I committed to each other. That commitment endured a number of challenges, most seriously her hereditary disease, which dogged her all her life, but came on strongest in the 2000s, and eventually took her life. Those close to me know that she and I went through this hellish time together-and I did not flinch.

A friend of Kathy’s and mine, who also lives in the Philippines, wrote that the need of any woman is for her man to stand by her, and not use her as a plaything. Nothing is truer. My primary interest in Kathy is that she realizes her dreams and her own life plan. We both must tend to our respective families first, and if it comes to pass that we have time together, that will be gravy.

Getting back to the promptings of the spirit mentioned above, I have a few days at the turnover between June and July to devote to a group at Bellemont. There will be a lot of Red Cross work, both in person and online, the next two weeks. Slow Food, the Farmers Market and Solid Rock soup kitchen will continue to figure in the mix, throughout the summer.

I will fulfill promises made in 2016 and again last year, to visit friends in Sweden, Croatia and Great Britain, in September, with an initial stop in Iceland. There may be other places during and right after these visits. I have been told to stick to a one-day-at-a-time mentality, and so it will be.

In the end, today was a re-assuring day and a fair number of things were resolved-just no hike. I am ever grateful to all the people in my life, especially to the women, both living and in the ethereal world.

Colombo

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Posted by on in collaborating, distraction issues, Historical, Personal Values, Striving

October 9, 2017, Prescott-

Synchronicity leads to triage.  A meeting that I cannot miss, tomorrow night, has delayed my brief jaunt over to Gila Cliff Dwellings, until Wednesday morning.  This will be just fine, though it takes me away from other meetings, Wednesday and Thursday nights.  As long as I’m back, to take care of a key task on Friday, it’s all good.  Besides, driving down and over to Superior on Tuesday night, after the gathering, will be easy enough.

Now then:  Today is celebrated by those of  Italian descent, across the United States, as Columbus Day..  Others among our countrymen point out that Columbus’ track record, with regard to the Indigenous people of the Caribbean Basin and Rim, was hardly deserving of special honours.

A contemporary of Columbus, Bartolomeo de las Casas, himself a defender of indigenous peoples’ rights, says of the Admiral :  He was “more than middling tall; face long and giving an air of authority; aquiline nose, blue eyes, complexion light and tending to bright red, beard and hair red when young but very soon turned gray from his labors; he was affable and cheerful in speaking […] A forgiver of injuries, [he] wished nothing more than that those who offended against him should recognize their errors, and that the delinquents be reconciled with him.”

Columbus did concur with slaughtering cannibals, among the Caribs of Dominica, after seeing graphic evidence of their torture of both Taino and Spaniard.  He reported, but did not practice, the sexual enslavement of young Taino girls.  For this last, and other “crimes against the Spanish”, his opponents, Bobadilla and Roldan, sought Columbus’ removal. Although Roldan later reconciled with Columbus, Bobadilla persisted, and eventually saw to the Admiral’s removal and imprisonment.  Much of the present-day condemnation of Christopher Columbus comes from “evidence” cited  by Bobadilla, who was himself a severe persecutor of indigenous people, though his own rule over Santo Domingo proved ineffective and was, therefore, very brief.

Having said this, I am not sure what merit Columbus has, for the honours heaped upon him, as “discoverer of America”.  He never set foot on American soil, other than Puerto Rico, which has its own history and sovereignty, separate from that of the United States of America.  He was, by his own admission, not the first European to set foot in North America (having visited Iceland and heard the descriptions of “Vinland”, from that country’s residents).

Like many of our holidays, Columbus Day has become about us. In this case, it has become about proud Italian-Americans  marching in parades and honouring their rich heritage.  That heritage includes, among other things, the fact that our hemisphere’s two continents are named for one of Columbus’s contemporaries:  Amerigo Vespucci, a cartographer.  Columbus himself is honoured, decently enough, by places being named for him, from the capitals and largest cities of Ohio and South Carolina, to Canada’s westernmost province (albeit by way of Lewis and Clark having named the Columbia River after him).

People change at a glacial pace, so I expect Columbus Day, and the parades, will be around for some years yet.  It doesn’t much matter, here in Arizona, save for the banks and post offices being closed.  We tend to pay more mind to those important to this area’s heritage.  So, by and large, the sensibilities of Native Americans loom larger, and Columbus is more a figure of curiosity and of academic study.