Patricia Garry

Two Poems

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3 Haiku on Justice, Peace and Joy

Justice, peace and joy                        Justice, peace and joy              Justice, peace and joy

When these are found and present,    The basis for a good life.           Why are they so hard to find?

Breathe in Gratitude.                             Often missing today.                Let’s look in our hearts

 

Issues of Justice and Peace

Issues of justice and peace often get tangled, especially when justice means the Courthouse.

Where is peace and justice for children who have just been evicted?  Their chance for a prosperous and happy future becomes smoke when Mom can’t pay the rent.

Will the needed remedies – fixes to the law, money from the Feds, come quickly enough for those / our children’s futures?

 

The Hidden Messages in Water – an oldie but a goodie!

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I was looking for another book entirely about a week ago, when this one fell out of the bookcase. Published in 2001, and written by Masaru Emoto, the major premise is that beautiful frozen crystals can be created from clear springs and quality water, which has been talked to with love, encouragement, and appreciation. And that dirty, un-fresh water, spoken to disparagingly, only forms incomplete crystals when frozen. The pictures are incredible – bright, colorful, full of beauty!

Dr. Emoto believes that ‘our emotions and feeling have an effect on the world moment by moment.’ My life tells me the same thing. Approaching the world with ease, gratitude and love, expecting joy with each breathe, gives us that world.

Beauty begets more beauty, smiling creates more smiles. Practice and play with these ideas. Your amazement at how well that works will create even more amazement! xoxox

The House in the Cerulean Sea

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The House in the Cerulean Sea – By T J Klune, Published 2020

 

An exquisite book, set in a slightly futuristic world where work deadens and fear rules employment, and most folks don’t think – too scary, risks are too risky.  The world works just enough to keep most everyone miserable.

 

Linus Baker is a caseworker in the Department in Charge of Magical Youth, run by Extremely Upper Management.  He lives one of those dead lives, and has made his caseworker decisions without regard to what happens after he decides.

 

Then he is sent to the far end of the country, with his cranky cat Calliope, to spend a month essentially judging whether to close down the particular and peculiar orphanage with 6 marvelously magical and gifted children with varied gifts, physical appearances, phobias and strengths.  Located on an island in the ocean, it is run by Arthur Parnassus and essentially managed by a winged sprite who is chief cook and main supporter. Helping with the cooking is Lucy, one of the students / children, actually 6-year-old Lucifer, son of you-know-who.

 

This is a beautiful heart-wrenching and affirming story of one man’s growth, taking charge of his own life, and a story of overthrowing the bureaucracy.  It is also a gay love story, not very gay (in terms of happy) until nearly the end.  And a story of being different in a world that is not fond of different.

 

The story is magical in and of itself – beauty is everywhere in this book.

 

Book Review: Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen

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As you know, I have been working my way through Jane Austen all this long summer. Summer is going, autumn is nearly ready to turn into winter – and I am nearly finished with this journey. Elinor Dashwood, the sister with Sense, and Marianne, who is all Sensibility, are the protagonists of this novel, first published in 1811.

Tape Harvard Professors

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To the Editor:

Re ?Tape Found Over Portraits of Black Harvard Professors? (news article, Nov. 20):

Instead of dignifying with inflated philosophical bloviation the grim nastiness of the anonymous vandal(s) who pasted strips of black tape on the portraits of African-American professors, Harvard Law students responded with wit and human warmth: They put along the frames of those same portraits hundreds of colored Post-it notes bearing messages of affection and gratitude.

These young men and women teach us all a valuable lesson.

CHARLES FRIED

Cambridge, Mass.

The writer is a professor at Harvard Law School.

Book Review: Sanditon, by Jane Austen and Another Lady

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Sanditon was Jane Austen’s last novel – the first 11 chapters completed before her death in the summer of 1817, and the book, unfinished, bequeathed to her niece. Over a century later, Marie Dobbs, born in Australia in 1924, finished the book in the 19—-s. And I must say – she finished it with Jane’s rather wicked sense of humor, and some outright laugh out loud pages. What a treat!

A Psychic’s Understanding of January 6 and the Election of President Joe Biden And Future Outcomes Related to That Election

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You can tell from the date I began this that I was distracted by the rampage in DC and did not finish.

What I was going to say – and as I feel it today – January 6 was the bursting of the boil, breaking open so we can all see and experience that personal and social explosion.

The boil bursting did not bring an immediate cessation of poison and pain.  But an easing has begun, and will continue.  So this continuing improvement does not mean the hostility and anger will cease.  But it does mean that some people will become more civil, some hate will seep away, people will begin to peel away from the extremes on the many sides of our national convulsion, and head back toward finding a way to work together.

 

This easing will mean gradual improvements in our governance, and perhaps big improvements in some parts of that governance.  Transportation will manage to expand its lane under Mayor Pete, while infrastructure’s path may stay rocky for a while longer.  HUD, I feel, is going to be two steps forward, one step back – progress and jerkiness at the same time.  I expect big and fast changes at the Centers for Disease Control, and in the Health and Human Services sector in DC, with openness and joy seeping through.

 

Fiscally, Treasury and the Federal Reserve will quietly do quite wall.  The State Department, being more visible and becoming more active around the world, will attract some undue attention from angry folks. But their big worldwide mission may be distracting and harder to target.   Anger about the small stuff may dissipate while trying to find a big audience.

 

Defense looks to be off to an excellent start.  And Joe Biden is proceeding calmly, clearly, with good explanations for his moves.  He is making it all look easy, reasonable, and helpful.  Thank heavens.

 

Homeland Security and Immigration made lots of awful missteps under the previous administration, and have lots of employees not on the same page with their new bosses. A bumpy road there, which will straighten out, and become reasonable and fair over time.   Joe’s new initiatives will go forward, some slowly, some with fights…but they will go forward, pretty steadily.

 

The Environmental Protection Agency, the great American outdoors, the shale fracking, new windmills and solar panels – it will all be confusing for much of the year, but will change directions from the old path and head into the future.

 

The healing of the wounds from the pandemic is on an expanding trajectory – the month of May feels like the time when the country opens back up to something very like normal.  Restaurants, churches, festivals will not be the same, but they will be back.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Doing Most of My Eating at O Pie O

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It is amazing how quickly O Pie O, East Walnut Hills’ just barely a year old restaurant has become my favorite, my go to place.

Last Tuesday, Shaheen and I had dinner in between working on my computer and doing readings for each other. Then on Friday, with my Florida sister Kathleen and her significant other Rob in town, it ws again the right – comfortable, relaxed, easy – choice, after spending the day riding the streetcar and wandering Findlay Market.

Long may it reign!

Watching All the Runners Go By

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One of the most pleasant things about living right on the edge of Eden Park (in addition to living in a Matisse, and looking out on a different picture each morning) is people watching, especially when there is a race going by.

Saturday was the Queen Bee, which several friends have since let me know they were running in. It’s a half-marathon, with tons of smaller races organized in it. And it’s the first one I’ve seen where the racers did not go around the overlook, but stayed on Victory Parkway – so I got to watch the tables for cups of water being set up, empty cups flung down as they were finished (and then tables down and everything cleaned up at the end), got to watch the sawhorses and traffic cones being put into place, the police officers beginning to direct traffic – everything from beginning to end.

It was a perfect day, nice and cool, with lots of variety in what the runners were wearing, mostly women with some guys, everybody happy. Cincinnati has so much variety, so many things to do – and all without being as crowded and expensive as many places.

Keep it going, racers!

Book Review: Emma by Jane Austen

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I can check another of Jane Austen’s masterpieces off my list. Last night, I finished Emma, which Jane wrote and which was published in 1816, the year before she died.

It includes the dedication which is a major part of the Jane Austen mystery, Jane and the Waterloo Map, by Stephanie Barron. The dedication says: To His Royal Highness The Prince Regent, This work is, by his Royal Highness’s Permission, most respectfully dedicated, by His Royal Highness’s dutiful and obedient humble servant, The Author. No wonder the royals were so sure they were always right!

The Cincinnati Library provided this in a large type edition – it was 684 pages. And I now know probably almost all of the prevailing rules about who calls on whom, when, how and why in English manners and society in the early 1800s. Whew! I am glad life is so much simpler now. And texting doesn’t involve a lot of social rules.

Emma is a 21-year-old member of the gentry, wealthy in her own right, sweet and naive in some ways, but also quite sure she knows who belongs with whom, how things should be done, and is very willing to act on those beliefs to arrange and fix the lives of her friends. We definitely would recognize Emma today, though this book is over 200 years old. She is also living in a fairly backwater part of England, which gives her just a small segment of society to work on, and we get to know them all very well.

Needless to say, Emma is almost always, and flamingly, wrong. So there is a lot of Jane’s subtle humor in these pages. Emma is, though, very good hearted, and very smart in some ways, while also missing clues right in front of her. As well as always insisting she herself, while working to marry off friends and acquaintances, will never marry.

The book ends well, which I always appreciate. And is fairly lighted-hearted and fun. It also could have been written yesterday or tomorrow, thus demonstrating Jane’s genius and gifts. Enjoy!