Welcome to a World of Spiritual Harmony

A friend and I took a short and wonderful road trip to Louisville on Saturday, to see the extended run of Wild Blessings, A Celebration of Wendell Berry.

We had lunch in the World Cafe on Bardstown Road - they had an Egyptian entree on the menu. So you know I had to have that! And got to the theater just a few minutes before it began.

The entire production was a deeply satisfying experience - body, mind and spirit. The set was beautiful, simple, warm. With two screens showing sometimes the same picture, sometimes two separate images, and carrying the titles of the poems being embodied as the moments flowed one into the other. Five actors on stage, including gifted hammer dulcimer player Malcolm Dalgleish. The movement throughout was a tender dance, a creation of loving patterns.

The poems ranged across both space and time, from Berry’s early writing through the many stages of his long life. Themes of anger and frustration, though some leavened with humor (The Mad Farmer Manifesto), poems of the beauty and grace of the Divine feminine, of his love for his wife, lyrics on the land and the seasons.

The play is a true gift, an injection of optimism in a darkened time, the presentation so perfectly in tune with the material presented. The oneness, the unity, the calm that Berry is seeking soaks through. Perhaps a perfect play, perfectly presented.

Let’s hope this world premiere sees many productions in many places in the very near future.

Saw the first bat of the season earlier this week - I love the bats and their jerky soaring flight. Glad to welcome them back, since the mosquitoes will be here soon, too.

The cowbirds are back for the second year - don’t care for their lifestyle, but they are interesting birds. Lots of other air folk are arriving, too. Including one I’ve never seen before - the rosebreasted grosbeak. An astonishing fuschia splash on his chest. Big and perky, patient up to a point, and then is large enough to get to the feeder and get his share. Saw another a few days later - they were definitely ready for a little mano a mano tussle. Then yesterday, I saw the female - who looks like a large sparrow with white mascara.

Found lots about the grosbeak - big beak to crack open seeds - in the nature books, but not in the spiritual books. So I mused up my own notions about what the message might be, and have emailed that to my great friend Ann, who is a gifted Animal Communicator. (Comment if you want her info.) I’ll report back when it’s all intuited and clear.

In the meantime - having all those wonderful visitors takes my mind off how much yard work there is to do. And then I can think about how much fun it is when the work’s done!

Hysterically funny. The Three Stooges meet the Shakespeare Company - and all’s well that ends well!

First you take Shakespeare’s most over-the-top comedy - mixed up twins, mixed up servants, mother and father separated, too. Add in Star Trek /sci-fi sets and lots of Twilight Zone confusion. Plus shadow puppets. And wild and crazy music. Warm every body up with lots of bawdy humor, and then a farting scene. Plus a marriage that does not seem to be made in heaven, and a potential marriage that just might be.

Finish off with a chase scene involving maybe 15 people. When they are all worn out, good old Will winds it all up with a very satisfactory set of conclusions. Original. Unique. And, as I said, hysterically funny!

Joe Vitale has written an awful lot of books, and had several on the best seller lists, for someone who is not a very good writer.

He’s one of the folk quoted extensively in The Secret, and is a leader in the self-empowerment, bringing the good into your own life by various spiritual techniques movement. This book’s subtitle is The Secret Hawaiian System for Wealth, Health, Peace and More, and it’s co-written with Ihaleakala Hew Len, Ph. D. Dr. Hew Len teaches the ancient Hawaiian system of Ho’oponopono.

None of which you really need to know to use the very simple system, which basically is an affirmation / mantra. As I point out to folk, affirmations are not true the first time you say them. By the 13,000th or 14,000th time, they usually are true. And you don’t really have to believe anything. Just say the mantra, and keep saying it. Applying logic to this stuff doesn’t help it work or not work. So it’s best not to bother.

The system is to say: I love you, I am sorry, please forgive me, thank you. The I love you can come at the beginning or the end. I sometimes say it at the beginning and at the end. You can be thinking about a particular situation or person - or not.

And there are hints throughout the book that you’ll learn a lot more if you attend one of the seminars that build on this teaching - a little crass, I think. But I already know Joe’s books are not well written, and to me many pages seem to be filler - letters that don’t matter, extensive quotes from workshops, re-worded repetitions of material already presented.

But, as I said at the beginning, it doesn’t matter. If you want change in your life, use this system. Or any other that catches your attention. Don’t think about it and try to figure it out. Just do it, don’t stop, your life will change. The system doesn’t really have to make sense to make things happen.

There are a few books out there like Garden Spells, by Sarah Addison Allen. Magical events woven into the everyday life of the characters. Alice Hoffman has written several of them. Garden Spells is still worth reading - because of the inventive magic, and because of the wonderful characters. The magic apple tree really becomes a character, and causes changes in life direction for several characters - including heroine Claire Waverly’s unwanted admirer, who radiates tiny purple snaps whenever he thinks of her. Each Waverly has a different gift - one creates haircuts that shift the self-esteem of the cut-ee, another shows up with just the right off-the-wall gift an hour before you need it. A fun book, well written.

Since I really expect to see at least one dragon and one fairy this lifetime, I found the magic a lot of fun. You will, too!

So there I was, ready for the next-in-line Elizabeth MacPherson mystery - and I didn’t have it. Because the title Lovely in Her Bones had sounded like one of Sharyn McCrumb’s excellent scary Appalachian mysteries, so I hadn’t asked the librarian to order it shipped to the Walnut Hills Branch of the Cincinnati-Hamilton Public Library for me.

And I had one of my infrequent quiet evenings coming up and really wanted my mystery - no matter that there were probably 70 other wonderful unread and all paid for books in the bedside table. I tried ordering it on line - didn’t know what my password was. Wandered around a while and figured that out. Then found the book, clicked to hold it, and asked that it be held at the main branch downtown, just a few minutes from my office.

About 3 p m, I realized I hadn’t heard from the library. Keep in mind that I knew I was being fairly unreasonable. I called them and asked about the book. The incredible librarian told me she’d go look for the book, and call me when she had it in her hand! Which she did, in about half an hour. She then carried it to the drive-up window, and canceled my email order! Way beyond the call of duty, I’d say.

So I curled up that evening quite happily, calling down blessings on her wonderful head. I am very impressed with the service at our over-the-top library.

So last month at Reiki Healing Circle, someone brought an Elizabeth MacPherson mystery by Sharyn McCrumb and put it on the giveaway table. Or almost - I believe I had it in my hand before it really landed. I used to devour mysteries, whole series, in weeks. And I was just in the mood.

After devouring this first one - Paying the Piper - I went to the Walnut Hills Library and ran down the entire list of these Scottish mysteries. The heroine is Scots - American, many generations gone, lives, works and visits in Appalachia, and now has a Scot for a fiance. (Sharyn also has a series of Appalachian history mysteries that are so great - but so scary, I can never read one again. Anne Rice does the same thing to me.)

Found I was missing one, through my own fault (another blog for that), and had to get it before I could continue. Now I’m happily immersed in these mysteries and hope they keep reproducing in the bag I’ve put them in. Elizabeth has a sardonic wit, a cousin and a brother who are worse, lots of interesting backgrounds, and enough clues thrown around to really keep me guessing. Plus very little in the way of gore. So they’re perfect from my point of view. I love good writing, pretty much no matter what the format. And when it’s a cozy British mystery with a Celtic angle - heaven has arrived.

She started writing these in the ’80s, and they’re still turning up every now and then. Long may they continue!

We dashed from Virgil’s in Bellevue, afraid we were going to be late. Had our usual wonderful luck finding a parking place - a bit farther than we wanted, and I saw a couple closer - should have trusted my luck a little more!

It was opening night, so folk were milling around, which meant we weren’t really late. Seats were scattered in the sold out house, and I ended up in the front row rather than the top tier - which is not my favorite place by any means, so I was very content.

Vigils is a strange and interesting play. And to me a strong statement that the new generation of playwrights is going to do what it will, and theater in five years may not be recognizable. It also may not be as comfortable, but with theater, that’s a plus. It’s good to come out with lots of puzzle over.

The characters: the widow, the soul, the wooer, the body and the child. Most of the story is told in flashbacks, several repeated from different points of view - or exactly the same. Coming, as memories will, just when they please. A powerful story of a woman stuck at a critical point in the spiral of growth, unable to move on. She has caught the soul and will not release him. All (her) pieces/pawns are caught up in the death(s) and the swirl of events.

The casting / acting was excellent. I looked at the play from current play points of view - but none of those fit. The guy I was sitting next to didn’t like it, couldn’t wait for it to be over. To me, there is in the play the shadowy form of a new outline rising. An exciting time in and for American theater is coming up, and this play is a harbinger.

It’s on until April 26 - go see it. It will stir you up, one way or the other.

Dinner Saturday night was at Virgil’s, just opened for about 6 weeks, in urban hot Bellevue.

I had seen a little note in the Enquirer in a front page sidebar, hadn’t followed up with the story inside - which turned out to be perfect, because Polly Campbell, former Enq food editor, had evidently panned it.

We were running later than we wanted to be, needing to be at the play Vigils at the Know in OTR at 8, and it was already nearly 6:30. Driving slowly, we found Virgil’s. I hopped out of the car and around to the entrance on the side (to leave more room for diners - an excellent idea, since it’s a smallish place). I threw myself on the hostess’ mercy - it was Saturday night, exactly dinner time, the place was packed, no reservations, we didn’t have time to wait.

She was great, sat us at the bar, where Mike took great care of us, while giving the martinis he was making for others just the perfect number of shakes.

I fell in love with the menu. Three vegetarian entrees (out of eight), without a single mention of that fact. Lots of other yummy vegan / vegetarian / omnivore choices on the menu as well, in every category. Ingenuity abounds in the ingredient pairings.

I ordered pearl couscous with all kinds of ingredients - and maybe that undertone was just a hint of nutmeg. It was pretty on the plate, fresh vegetables everywhere, as good as it sounded. I tried the empanadas on a friend’s plate - also yummy.

I was scarfing down the couscous at a rate that caused two other people to order it as their entrée. No time for dessert or all the appetizers I wanted to try. So we’ll be back.

Then came a dash to Vigils.