EarthMo 2023 - the Zombie apocalypse

  In Chapter 2 of Old Path White Clouds,  the Buddha gives a talk and uses the caring and tending of water buffalo as a metaphor for Practicing the Way.  The Way is the Buddhist path to freedom from suffering.   It is the path that the Buddha teaches, and the path that the bikkhus have chosen..  ---   KEY BUDDHIST CONCEPTS - 11 Practices of a Bikkhu - essential elements of the body - the Six Sense Organs - the Four Noble Truths - the Four Establishments of Mindfulness - Sixteen Methods of Conscious Breathing  - Sitting Meditation - Walking Meditation - arhatship ---   "a bhikku who follows these eleven points will attain arhatship in the span of six years of practice" 11 practices of a bhikku (monk, sangha member) 1  - recognize each of the essential elements of his body 2 - know which actions of body, speech, and mind are worth and which are not 3  - cleanse the  mind and body of desires, attachments, anger, and aversion...

 Tues 2023 Sept 26 The exciting news is that well known author John Irving is coming to Iowa to speak at Hancher Auditorium in Iowa City next month.  Even better news, all of the seats are free because the University hosts a free lecture series and this is one of them.    The bad news is that as of today, Sept 26, all of the seats are "sold out".  A pox upon those who just told me about it and got me all excited about attending.  Irving is scheduled to give his lecture on Friday the 13th, in October.  My poor luck. I have only read a couple of novels by John Irving but  I liked them very much.  They were The World According to Garp (1978), and Cider House Rules (1985).  If you are a fan of the Goodreads website , you may be interested to know that both books received a 4.1 average rating.  This was based on 224,000+ ratings of The World According to Garp, and 181,000 ratings for Cider House Rules.   John Irving studied at ...

 I could write a whole book talking about the teachers I have had in my life.  One of the most memorable ones was AB.   He was a meditation teacher, a Des Moines psychologist by profession.  I used to drive from Ames where I was living and working to Des Moines to sit with his meditation group.  It met once a week on a Thursday or Tuesday night, can't remember exactly.  The group of about 15 met at one of the member's houses.  It was a nice area of Des Moines, and all of the other meditators were older than me, in their 50's and 60's. If I recall correctly we meditated for a couple of 30 minutes session and read from a book called Old Path White Clouds for about 30 minutes in between the two sittings.  One individual would spontaneously volunteer to read a few paragraphs and then somebody else would begin reading where they left off.  I remember the copy of the book looking worn and tattered.  Over the years they had read the book f...

 It is 10:45 pm and I am getting ready to go to bed.  Our street is extremely loud and it appears that there is one or many parties going on in the neighborhood.  Downtown Latino Fest is taking place Saturday and Sunday this weekend in Des Moines so maybe the celebration includes neighborhood festivities also. Octoberfest is also going on at Waterworks Park this weekend.  It has a heavy theme of German beers and activities that didn't strike my fancy.  The weather forecast suggested rain and thunderstorms but it actually turned out pretty nice.  I walked to Burger King and had a chocolate shake while reading some poems by Donald Justice.   --- Here in Katmandu, by Donald Justice We have climbed the mountain. There's nothing more to do. It is terrible to come down To the valley Where, amidst many flowers, One thinks of snow, As formerly, amidst snow, Climbing the mountain, One thought of flowers, Tremulous, ruddy with dew, In the valley. One caught...

 Tuesday, Sept 19, 2023  8:05 am It's Tuesday and overcast.  I peaked out the window a minute ago and saw flashes of lightning.  Only then did I realize how terribly dry it's been this summer.  I can't remember it raining more than a day or two.  But we have been blessed by a fairly temperate summer.  It was lethally hot during RAGBRAI (The Register's Annual Great Bike Ride Across Iowa) but mercifully cool during much of the Iowa State Fair. I have spent the last half hour trying to think of something entertaining or profound to say.  I couldn't think of anything.  So the place to start when I've got nothing to say is where I'm at now and what I'm doing now. I'm back in Des Moines after spending 4 days in my former place of residence.  I go to Iowa City every few weeks--as a sort of mini-vacation.   It was fun.  I hooked up with my piano teacher, my old boyfriend, my new girlfriend, and my dance teacher.  My dance tea...

 There's a little town north of Iowa City where I lived in a house I bought on Main Street.  Every morning I got up and drove about 25 miles to my job. I was the librarian in a community hospital.  It was my second library job since graduating from Library school.  The first one was at a library in a midwestern university. The Catholic based hospital had two librarians.  There was Sister Angelica--the librarian for the patient library; and me, the librarian for the medical library --that the doctors and nurses used.  The job of a librarian in a community hospital is far different from the job of a reference librarian in a major university.  It is much quieter.  You work alone except for a few volunteers and a paid assistant.  For several years, I came in every morning like clockwork, and opened up the small library, and closed it at the end of the day.   On 9/11/2001, I drove in from small town, USA as usual.  I came to the bac...

 SEPTEMBER 9, 2023, AMES, IOWA, JACK TRICE STADIUM IOWA BEATS IOWA STATE 20-13, TAKES HOME FLOYD TROPHY ==================   ============================== FLOYD THE IOWA PIG NAMED AFTER MN GOV (1935) Yesterday was a treat because I got to watch the UI - ISU football game.  This was a major in-state rivalry--between Iowa State University located in Ames, Iowa, and University of Iowa, located in Iowa City, Iowa.   And the winner of the competition got to take home a trophy called Floyd of Rosedale which is a statue of a pig.   Interestingly enough, I did a Yahoo search for "Floyd of Rosedale" and the Yahoo search engine retrieved a Facebook video showing the Hawkeyes winning the Floyd of Rosedale trophy November 14, 2015.   I think perhaps Yahoo needs to tweek their search engine.   Also, rather interesting, I discovered in a GOOGLE search that Floyd of Rosedale is a trophy awarded to the winner in football games involving Iowa and a...

 Mark Doty  Mark Doty  (born August 10, 1953) is an  American   poet  and  memoirist  best known for his work  My Alexandria.  He was the winner of the  National Book Award  for Poetry in 2008. [1]   Mark Doty was born in  Maryville, Tennessee , [2]  to Lawrence and Ruth Doty, with an older sister, Sarah Alice Doty. He earned a  Bachelor of Arts  from  Drake University  in  Des Moines, Iowa , and received his  Master of Fine Arts  in  creative writing  from  Goddard College  in  Plainfield, Vermont . [3] Despite the bizarre happenings at the coffeeshop in Des Moines called Smoky Row, in which the poetry group meeting on Zoom experienced odd static which froze our screens and distorted the sound compelling me to log off and miss the reading altogether, and in which I later returned with a friend and inadvertently left my computer satchel unattended on a c...

  Union Terminal south mural/ Cincinatti, Ohio 1931 artist: Winold Reiss I just woke up from a 3 pm nap that was invoked from the large meal I had.  I overstuffed myself with the abundance of dishes that we had for a Labor Day cookout here at the house.  Actually, it was a cook-in since the two ladies who cooked all the food cooked it in the kitchen.  JW did grill some of the meat. ---  Labor Day has been celebrated since the latter part of the 1800's.  It started off being celebrated by some cities, and then was adopted as a celebration by some states.  In 1894 it was declared a federal holiday to be celebrated every first Monday of September.    Labor Day isn't one of the big holidays, like Christmas, Thanksgiving, and Easter.  A lot of stores stay open so you can still go shopping.   The word "labor" isn't a normal part of one's vocabulary.  Most people don't say, " I'm a "laborer."  They're more likely to say "I'm...

 Yesterday was a very special day.  I was walking in front of the house headed out to do errands about 10 am when I heard a rustling in the grass.  It repeated itself but when I looked down I couldn't see anything.  Then I heard it again.  It sounded like a large fly.  Finally, I saw a big object flapping its wings really fast. The wings were a big blur.  It was an Iowa locust that appeared to be caught under the netting the Google folks laid down after running the new fiberoptic down along the street.   I was going to go back to my room to get my jar but instead grabbed an envelope from my backpack and scraped the locust into that.  Then I went up to my room, poured the locust into my jar and took a picture of it.  After I took a picture of it I shook the jar and it looked dead as a door nail.  I felt horrible.  I guess I had been a little rough with it when I scooped it into the envelope.  Or maybe the jar had some ...