Welcome to a World of Spiritual Harmony

Back before Janet Evanovich was rich and famous, she confesses to having written a series of romance novels. Since two of them showed up on the Giveaway Table at a gathering, I scooped them up to see what they were like. Anything with Janet’s name on it is well written - and pretty funny.

My experience with romance novels is heavy breathing, powerless women, intensity and drama. With that criteria, Wife for Hire and Smitten do not qualify. They both have the boy / girl thing going on, and a little heavy breathing, but they also had me lol. And these heroines are sure not powerless.

Each story is well put together, with fun characters and believable situations - as Janet does so well. And her soon-to-be-totally-sure touch is in evidence.

I think we need a whole new category.

Hurray, hurray!

The hummers have returned! I have 3 feeders scattered around the yard - and I had them up before the little guys returned this year. So I didn’t have to be scolded by them hanging in front of the windows and reminding me.

My favorite feeder is the one suction-cupped to my kitchen window. As I wandered by yesterday, there was the merest flash - a hummer dashing off. I stayed quietly watching, and sure enough, he (with the ruby throat, which females don’t have) was back, hovering and feeding.

One of my favorite parts of summer is hummer-watching - so I’m a happy camper!

And a deer update - I was working at my computer last week and suddenly had that feeling of being watched - turned my head - and there was one of the yearling bucks, just getting his first antlers - staring at me. What a treat!

At our Reiki Healing Circles, we each bring whatever wonderful stuff we’re ready to let go of, and take away whatever is calling our names.

And so I picked up The Televisionary Oracle, a book by an astrologer, Rob Brezsny, whose weekly horoscopes I admire for their off-the-beaten-path freshness. He sees opportunities, not calamities, and has a way of peeking around the corner at new possibilities. He’s a strong optimist in his work.

Therefore, I thought I’d enjoy the book. And it turns out I’m not even going to read it.

As is my usual habit, I look at the front and back covers, read the blurbs, check out the introduction. I definitely didn’t like the front cover - seemed designed for shock value, and didn’t feel good to me. The blurbs on the back were good, and from folk who might be expected to know. But I still wasn’t feeling good about it - so I flipped randomly to 12 or so pages. Just found more shock value - nothing to learn, nothing to ponder - just off-putting pointless crude language. (It’s not the language that’s the problem - it’s how he’s choosing to use it.)

As I’m writing this, I flipped the book open again. Exactly the same shock value writing on page 313.
Could be I’m finding the only 13 or 14 pages that are written this way, and the book is fine. No likely, but possible.

In any case, this writing is telling me this book is not mine to read at this time. So I won’t.

A neighbor of ours - he lives in Bloomington, Indiana - writes books that are deep as well as effortless, planting ideas as smoothly as dropping stones gently into a pond.

Scott Russell Sanders, whose work I did not know, was the keynoter at the Mercantile Library’s Late-Blooming Writers Conference this year. After hearing him speak, taking life’s particulars to general understandings and then back again, I bought two of his books of essays: Force of Spirit (2000), and Secrets of the Universe - Essays on Family, Community, Spirit and Place (1991).

These are just eminently satisfying books. In Secrets, he is in the midst of raising children, loving his wife and making his way, and the essays reflect that. By the time he wrote Force of Spirit, he still loved his wife, loved his place in the world, and needed to include essays to each of his children on the occasion of their marriages.

Daily wisdom, a free-ranging mind, fearless and gentle - he dares to explore his thoughts, stand back and look at his own mind, and share with us what he sees.

He’s following a very human path to wholeness, and it’s a pleasure to take the journey with him.

p.s. I’ve not read his fiction, but will - the next time I get to the Mercantile.

Body + Soul magazine’s June issue has 10 easy strategies for the World’s Best Diet.

Succinct, clear, direct - so I thought I’d share them with you.

1. eat local and organic foods
2. wean yourself off the water bottle
3. drink organic, too
4. ask for sustainable seafood
5. b.y.o. bag
6. grow your own
7. be takeout savvy
8. become whole (non-processed foods, that is)
9. eat less meat
10. while you’re at it…eat less of everything

I’m particularly stumped at the moment about No. 7. I’m thinking of taking my own bowls, paper bags and waxed paper wrap to my very favorite deli. And I’m looking to buy non-plastic storage containers. Here I am eating right and well, but bringing the food home in non-recyclable containers.

p. s. Just noticed the magazine is now called whole living / body + soul, whole living.com - and it’s published by Martha Stewart! Amazing! She’s everywhere and is now into whole living, which I didn’t know. Undoubtedly a good way to get the message out to larger audiences.

The world is changing fast, isn’t it?

At the corner of Vine Street and Central Parkway, in the growing-by-leaps-and-bounds Gateway Quarter, you’ll find Park + Vine - the place in town for recycled, ecologically sustainable and just plain fun clothes, cleaning, bath and baby products - and interesting household items.

On my latest trip, I found recycled, recyclable, reusable, dishwasher safe plastic cutlery, tumblers and plates - and they are green! I always gather up all the plasticware, wash and re-use it after a gathering - good to go green in that area - pun intended!

I also found biodegradable / compostable snack plates made of sugar cane stalks! And spoons made of the same material. Just a few weeks in the compost pile - and they’ll be gone.

The store also carries bambooware - chic and trendy, but way more expensive than the others, so I skipped it - at least this time.

Park + Vine also now has a number of good books on green-ness, including one on eco-weddings - and a wedding registry.

Isn’t it great when what we want is also good for the earth? Makes me happy!

One of the things I love about my birthdays is that each one is different. Yesterday was a fabulous birthday - with the best weather of the year so far, as requested - but lower key than usual.

Started with the arrival of Sarah and a helper to keep planting all those impatiens that have been patiently waiting. Then friend Carolyn showed up to take a walk wherever we wanted. So we stopped at Starbucks in Columbia Tusculum, collected all their coffee grounds for Sarah to add to the garden, took a walk around Alms Park and ran into a friend of Carolyn’s, then walked around part of the bike trail at Lunken, since Carolyn had never been there.

Phone calls and cards and emails all day - my friends are so great, and love to celebrate with me. Mid-afternoon, had a vanilla phosphate at Aglamesis with Jenny, in town from Denver, her kids, mom my good friend Pat and Pat’s sister Jan. And stopped in at the toy store in Oakley Square - found just the right puzzle as a present for myself - hummingbirds!

Then sweet Brian, not feeling well but being great, came over with Stephanie and fixed the leaking faucet in the laundry room. And we all went to Myra’s Dionysus for dinner. Where I tried not to have same old, same old - but they were out of my other choice!

So gado gado, one of my favorite meals in the world, was my dinner! Terrific! Topped off with a bite of Brian’s baklava!

Hooray for birthdays!

It’s all been said - sometimes extraordinarily well, sometimes c/rudely - as in ‘Get the hook. Get her off the stage now.’

Hillary’s assassination comment on Friday really shook me. As it did Keith Olbermann and several NYT writers, and hundreds of blog commenters. Keith said Friday night in one of his Special Comments that she was not fit to be president.

The Times Editorial Board took her to task Saturday morning. There were more than 1,500 comments on that editorial before they shut it down, the vast majority majority calling for the superdelegates to step forward now and stop her, a large majority calling for the Times to rescind their endorsement of her.

I was hoping that the Times might have rescinded the endorsement, and looked for it on the editorial page this morning. No such luck - as yet.

But - every day since their endorsement of her in late winter, the pictures of Hillary and their endorsed Republican John McCain have been featured prominently on the online editorial page. Not so today. The pictures are gone.

I’m hoping / trusting that the endorsement itself goes away sometime next week - to be replaced by a ringing endorsement for Senator Obama.

I also love gardening, though I always have other wonderful folk helping me with it. Putting in 16 or 17 flats of impatiens can take a while - maybe til August - so I need some help!

I put all the hummingbird feeders up today - feels like it’s finally going to be warm enough for them to venture up from their southern hangouts. The flickers and the downy woodpeckers are visiting the suet. I’m so glad they stick around in the woods.

After I came back in, a yearling buck - just getting his first set of antlers - came up to munch at the bird feeder I had just filled. Next time I looked out, he was staring intently off into the distance. When I looked out a window to see what he was seeing - there she was. A tiny day or two old fawn, grazing in the yard next door, with her mom very close by.

P S The lettuce has really enjoyed this weather - it’s a bumper crop. If you’d like some, let me know!

I always like to stay current with Shirley MacLaine’s writing, to see what she’s up to and thinking about. This book is about her getting used to the idea of aging - I think she’s nearly 80 - , moving to what sounds like a permanent home in Santa Fe, and about her take on aliens. (For me, they may well be around, but I feel we have enough to do learning our lessons and doing this life well.)

As she’s organizing her bookshelves after the move, she’s looking back at the volumes and the artifacts she’s brought to her new home with her, and the synchronicities that brought them into her life.

Here’s one statement that just jumped off the page at me: ‘It is everyone’s individual decision to have as much healing as we are willing to receive.’ Vintage Shirley. If you’ve liked her other books, you’ll like this one.