Tag Archives: blogging

Blogging Reflections

Posted on by
14

Have you noticed how people use the word “whisperer,” where they once used “guru?”  Both terms imply a super-normal expertise, in some cases justified.  I’d love to have the Dog Whisperer visit our home!  Meanwhile, a quick check revealed you get 13,800,000 hits when you google on “blog whisperer?”

Last year, at a local writer’s conference, a “social media expert” who I think called himself a blog whisperer, offered to critique the blogs of those willing to come for the pre-session and pay $20.  That’s a bargain compared to the first blog whisperer to pop up on google, who charges $900 for a 90 day course on how to speak with “the voice of your soul.”

Think about that.  Though we might balk at the price, we live in a world that accepts the idea of hiring a coach to teach us to speak from our soul.  Afterwards, I guess we can look for a seminar on how to reclaim our power.

We live in a world of specialization and necessarily rely on experts in every phase of our lives.  In many cases, I think it’s a boon.  Those who long for the good old days are not in the throes of a toothache or facing surgery.

I have nothing against experts.  I like to have them around when the car breaks down or I break down.  For the garden, or home repairs, or internet security.

Yet something within us demands room to make our own discoveries and mistakes.  To come to our own conclusions.  To find out where we stand on things, what we really believe, regardless of the experts.

I used to think of writing as such an activity, but no longer.  Google on “writing, how to” and you get 1.9 trillion hits.  That’s a lot of whisperers!

The one little niche that is still free and clear, as far as I can see, is blogging, a medium that is unique because it allows us to think out loud in public.  For me, it is like a journal, a place to explore ideas, but the threat and promise of the “Publish” button forces me to go a step further.  When I pull the weeds from a first draft, I may find the seed of a new idea, or two, or three, or none.  Sometimes a draft lies fallow for weeks, and sometimes I publish within the hour.  More than a few get deleted.  One time I hit “Publish” when I meant to “Save” and got some practice in really fast editing.

I’ve heard some expert advice on blogging, and tend to ignore it all.  Before you say, “I knew it,” let me tell you what I mean – tips like:

  • Don’t write more than 250 words in a post.
  • Do not write about politics or religion.
  • Pick a single theme for your blog and stick to it.

The feedback I really take seriously comes from readers.  First there are simply the stats; people vote with their eyeballs.  Beyond that, is the power of even a single comment.

I’ve recently gotten enthralled, as I have in the past, with looking at old stories and legends.  When Adam, who blogs at Reviews and Ramblings http://blizzerd03.wordpress.com/ said he likes such posts, that was all the confirmation I needed.  “Yeah, this is road I have to follow.”  I value some of your comments more than 1.9 trillion articles on how to write.

As I have quoted more than once, as Joseph Campbell told the legends of the Holy Grail, he said every knight sought their own path into the forest; it would have been shameful to follow another’s trail.

This post is a way of thanking you all and a wish that we may all find our own way through the forest.

And We Have A Winner!

Posted on by
2

That’s right, a winner in the: Caption the Condom Cartoon Contest  (announced here last week http://wp.me/pYql4-1MT).

There were at least a few positive outcomes after Rush Limbaugh’s slur of law student, Sandra Fluke, which inspired the contest.

1) One positive result:  I got to use some great alliteration in the contest name. 

2) Another bit of good news:  eleven sponsors bailed on Rush after his outburst.  Unfortunately, a Republican Super-Pac stepped in with bailout money.  Apparently some consider Limbaugh’s mouth too big to fail.

3) And best of all, at least for this blog, Camille w1ns a $10 Amazon gift card with her caption:

If only Rush’s parents had known how to use me properly… 

Please stop by Camilles blog and see what other clever things she is up to: http://poppycockandsomesuchnonsense.wordpress.com/

And thank you all for your entries and for stopping by to share a laugh!

My First Ever, Caption the Cartoon Contest!

Posted on by
11

My recent resolution to stay more positive on this blog is challenged almost every time I pick up a newspaper or turn on the evening news.  Believing that laughter is better than tears, and in keeping with this week’s headlines, I’m announcing a little contest:

Thanks to istockphoto.com for this royalty-free cartoon

I’m guessing that everyone who isn’t living with wolves knows why poor little Mr. Happy is sad. I will award a $10 Amazon gift card to the best caption for this cartoon, submitted as a comment to this post by midnight PST, Saturday, March 10.  Multiple entries are encouraged.

***

If you have been on vacation, or on a media fast, or if you live in a country that still has real political debate, you may not have heard of the controversy over rules that require health-care providers to cover contraception even if it violates the conscience of certain faith-based employers.  Throwing gasoline on the fire, conservative talk show host, Rush Limbaugh, called Sandra Fluke, a third-year law student, a “slut” and “a prostitute” after she testified in favor of insurance coverage of birth control. http://www.sacbee.com/2012/03/03/4307985/contraception-fight-intensifies.html

So now that you know the story, what are you waiting for? Get busy writing your captions!

Concerning Sleight of Hand and Blogging Goals for 2012

Posted on by

Sleight of hand is the name most often used to describe the methods of stage magic.  Sleight of hand is composed of seven basic skills according to Penn and Teller (quoted on Wikipedia):

      1. Palm – To hold an object in an apparently empty hand.
      2. Ditch – To secretly dispose of an unneeded object.
      3. Steal – To secretly obtain a needed object.
      4. Load – To secretly move an object to where it is needed.
      5. Simulation – To give the impression that something has happened that has not.
      6. Misdirection – To lead attention away from a secret move.
      7. Switch – To secretly exchange one object for another.

Of all the illusionist’s tricks, “misdirection” may be the most important:   “The magician choreographs his actions so that all spectators are likely to look where he or she wants them to. More importantly, they do not look where the performer does not wish them to look.”  (Wikipedia)

I started thinking of stage magic after seeing Hugo, (http://wp.me/pYql4-1xT).   Research confirmed the movie’s account of pioneer filmmaker, George Melies, who was as stage magician before he turned to cinema.

But this post is not about good magic, since misdirection is such an apt metaphor for the way our institutions play us these days.  In this sense,  misdirection often means getting us to ask the wrong questions.

Over the last few days, I’ve found myself humming the title song of Bruce Springsteen’s album, Magic (2007), which he says concerns “the Orwellian times we live in,” and is “not about magic, but tricks – and their consequences:”

Trust none of what you hear,
Less of what you see,
This is what will be.
This is what will be.

***

I don’t think we can resist misdirection unless we are engaged in finding our own truths.  It is also very hard to go it alone.  In a famous psychology experiment, test subjects would disown their own perceptions and agree to a lie if everyone else in the room did, but if even one other person stood up for the truth, so would most of the volunteers.

In addition to the kindred spirits we find where we live, we have our online communities.  We also have the searchers of past generations who travelled this road and left their discoveries in books.

I hope I did my part on this blog to write of things and people that matter.  To try to discern and point to the truth.  I’m still too close to 2011 to say.  I did the best I could at the time, and I hope to do better in 2012 because we are really going to need it.  On the eve of an election year, I sometimes think the end of the world on 12/21/12 would be the easy way out!

***

Still, to end the year on an upbeat note, here is a neat clip of Penn and Teller demonstrating the core elements of sleight of hand.  Not only does it evoke the fun of a magic set I had as a kid, but it’s filled with metaphorical possibilities!

Happy New Year to all of you!

The Year in Rearview and Words of Hope From Gary Snyder

Posted on by
Reply

Now is when writers compose their summaries of the outgoing year, and I wanted to weigh in too.  Problem was, I kept discarding drafts as my inner parental voices chimed in with, “Quit whining.”  Eliminate whining, and it’s hard to come up with things to say about 2011.

Fortunately, I found a spot-on analysis by another blogger, badlandsbradley, who wrote:  “2011 sucked. It was a big stupid year full of big stupid things. All around, it was just stupid.”  http://badlandsbadley.wordpress.com/2011/12/27/2012-a-look-ahead/

Now that we have that out of the way, what’s left?  I sometimes compose gratitude lists at turning points in the year, and I find it a worthwhile practice, but I think people have to do this for themselves.  I started one list by writing, “We survived,”  which brought to mind several good people who didn’t.  Sometimes the things we are grateful for are weighty, things to “ponder in our hearts,” as the Christmas story puts it.

In the middle of these reflections, a phrase I hadn’t thought of for years came to mind:  “Drown their butts, crush their butts.”  This stanza comes from Gary Snyder’s marvelous, Smokey the Bear Sutra. When found it online, I stopped to appreciate these words at the end of the poem:

(may be reproduced free forever).

Those five simple words of generosity opened a real wellspring of gratitude for me, so now I want to share this poem, one of my favorite by this Pulitzer Prize winning poet.  May reproducing it here benefit beings everywhere.

*****

Gary Snyder

Smokey the Bear Sutra

Once in the Jurassic about 150 million years ago,
the Great Sun Buddha in this corner of the Infinite
Void gave a Discourse to all the assembled elements
and energies: to the standing beings, the walking beings,
the flying beings, and the sitting beings — even grasses,
to the number of thirteen billion, each one born from a
seed, assembled there: a Discourse concerning
Enlightenment on the planet Earth.

“In some future time, there will be a continent called
America. It will have great centers of power called
such as Pyramid Lake, Walden Pond, Mt. Rainier, Big Sur,
Everglades, and so forth; and powerful nerves and channels
such as Columbia River, Mississippi River, and Grand Canyon
The human race in that era will get into troubles all over
its head, and practically wreck everything in spite of
its own strong intelligent Buddha-nature.”

“The twisting strata of the great mountains and the pulsings
of volcanoes are my love burning deep in the earth.
My obstinate compassion is schist and basalt and
granite, to be mountains, to bring down the rain. In that
future American Era I shall enter a new form; to cure
the world of loveless knowledge that seeks with blind hunger:
and mindless rage eating food that will not fill it.”

And he showed himself in his true form of

SMOKEY THE BEAR

  • A handsome smokey-colored brown bear standing on his hind legs, showing that he is aroused and
    watchful.

  • Bearing in his right paw the Shovel that digs to the truth beneath appearances; cuts the roots of useless
    attachments, and flings damp sand on the fires of greed and war;

  • His left paw in the Mudra of Comradely Display — indicating that all creatures have the full right to live to their limits and that deer, rabbits, chipmunks, snakes, dandelions, and lizards all grow in the realm of the Dharma;

  • Wearing the blue work overalls symbolic of slaves and laborers, the countless men oppressed by a
    civilization that claims to save but often destroys;

  • Wearing the broad-brimmed hat of the West, symbolic of the forces that guard the Wilderness, which is the Natural State of the Dharma and the True Path of man on earth: all true paths lead through mountains —

  • With a halo of smoke and flame behind, the forest fires of the kali-yuga, fires caused by the stupidity of
    those who think things can be gained and lost whereas in truth all is contained vast and free in the Blue Sky and Green Earth of One Mind;

  • Round-bellied to show his kind nature and that the great earth has food enough for everyone who loves her and trusts her;

  • Trampling underfoot wasteful freeways and needless suburbs; smashing the worms of capitalism and
    totalitarianism;

  • Indicating the Task: his followers, becoming free of cars, houses, canned foods, universities, and shoes;
    master the Three Mysteries of their own Body, Speech, and Mind; and fearlessly chop down the rotten
    trees and prune out the sick limbs of this country America and then burn the leftover trash.

Wrathful but Calm. Austere but Comic. Smokey the Bear will
Illuminate those who would help him; but for those who would hinder or
slander him,

HE WILL PUT THEM OUT.

Thus his great Mantra:

Namah samanta vajranam chanda maharoshana
Sphataya hum traka ham nam

“I DEDICATE MYSELF TO THE UNIVERSAL DIAMOND
BE THIS RAGING FURY DESTROYED”

And he will protect those who love woods and rivers,
Gods and animals, hobos and madmen, prisoners and sick
people, musicians, playful women, and hopeful children:

And if anyone is threatened by advertising, air pollution, television,
or the police, they should chant SMOKEY THE BEAR’S WAR SPELL:

DROWN THEIR BUTTS
CRUSH THEIR BUTTS
DROWN THEIR BUTTS
CRUSH THEIR BUTTS

And SMOKEY THE BEAR will surely appear to put the enemy out
with his vajra-shovel.

  • Now those who recite this Sutra and then try to put it in practice will accumulate merit as countless as the sands of Arizona and Nevada.

  • Will help save the planet Earth from total oil slick.

  • Will enter the age of harmony of man and nature.

  • Will win the tender love and caresses of men, women, and beasts.

  • Will always have ripe blackberries to eat and a sunny spot under a pine tree to sit at.

  • AND IN THE END WILL WIN HIGHEST PERFECT ENLIGHTENMENT.

    thus have we heard.

    (may be reproduced free forever)

Great Info on Charles Dickens From a Reader

Posted on by
1

I enjoy all the comments I receive, and sometimes they lead me down the trail to another post. One like that came in this morning, when blogger, Nixy43 (aka, Helen Nix) left a note on my recent post, Humbug Revisited:  http://wp.me/pYql4-1sF.

Ms Nix, a Londoner, is compiling a detailed list of 1000 interesting things to do in London for less than a tenner.  Any idiot can enjoy London on a large bankroll, she says, but it’s not so easy for the frugal tourist or people who live there.  She sent me a link to her marvelous post, “Thing 86:  Enjoy a literary evening at Foyles and bond with Dickens at Christmas.”  http://wp.me/p1I6Mp-5m

There is much information about Dicken’s, about changing attitudes to Christmas when he wrote A Christmas Carol, and links to much information about this classic.  London is gearing up for an all out celebration of Dicken’s in 2012, the 200th anniversary of his birth, so if there is any chance you will visit next year, this post is a must.

Stop by, enjoy the story, and thank Helen for posting it!

Charles Dickens

Occupied

Posted on by
2

I sat up and took notice the other night when a local news announcer complained that the “Occupy Sacramento” protestors “could not even say what they want.” In other words, they won’t play by the rules – you know, the unwritten rule that says when a TV station sends a van to cover your event, you need to have your sound-byte ready. How else can they work it into a one minute segment and move on? How else can you be neatly pigeonholed?

Actually, there is at least one articulate answer to the question of what the protestors want, supplied by Naomi Klein, a Canadian author and activist, at the “Occupy Wall Street” rally in New York. http://www.thenation.com/article/163844/occupy-wall-street-most-important-thing-world-now. This link comes courtesy of Genevieve’s blog, Look Who’s Blogging Now, which you can find on my blogroll. I suggest you check it out if you are interested in this latest eruption of frustration with the status quo, since Genevieve is off to check out the “Occupy Minnesota” protests, and will likely have more to say.

Occupy Wall Street protestors

Perhaps one reason I took special notice of the protests that night, was because I’d been reading of another famous entity that didn’t seem to be playing by the rules; I mean the universe we live in. If – and this is a big if – a large group of European physicists are right, and neutrinos really move faster than light, then some of our core assumptions about the nature of matter are wrong. Here’s a good article by Jason Palmer, science and Technology reporter for the BBC news: http://scienceblogs.com/startswithabang/2011/09/this_extraordinary_claim_requi.php

So this neutrino walks into a bar a moment after he’s ordered a beer…

Suddenly we’re faced with conclusions like these:

  • Twentieth century politics no longer works.
  • Twentieth century economics no longer works.
  • Twentieth century physics may need to be revised at its core.
  • As I have often discussed here, twentieth century publishing models are spluttering, and I’m sure you can think of other specialty areas where the past no longer functions as a reliable guide to the present.

Something similar happened a hundred years ago. In 1905, Freud published The Interpretation of Dreams, and Einstein published his special theory of relativity. Nineteenth century notions of human nature and the world no longer fit. The start of World War I nine years later marked the greatest failure of business-as-usual in the history of the world (up until then).

So what happens now?

Einstein said, “The mind that creates a problem is not the mind that can solve it.” In other words, we have people who are sick of the status quo, but for the moment, avoid easy answers. Analogies to the Tea Party are obvious enough that even this week’s Saturday Night Live picked up the thread. As I recall, the media was frustrated with the Tea Party in the beginning for the same reasons – no central spokesperson, no succinct Powerpoint agenda. Once they sent people to Washington, the Tea Party got buttonholed pretty fast as a one-issue-movement. “Balance the budget without raising taxes and life will be good again.” Does anyone, even a member of congress, really believe that?

Here’s an observation by a local man:

“The enemy of my enemy is my friend? Despite reasonable differences, tea partyers and “occupiers” have far more in common with each other than with the politicos they elected to represent them. Conversely, Republicans and Democrats have more in common with each other than they do with the people who voted for them.” Bruce Maiman, “Wall Street Protestors, meet the tea partners,” editorial in The Sacramento Bee, Oct. 7, 2011, p. 13

The news media, even NPR, refused to acknowledge the occupiers for more than a week, but they didn’t go away. I hope they stay out in the open long enough for people and especially politicians to really get a glimpse of the underlying disappointment, fear, and outrage that animates so many who can no longer be soothed by simplistic answers.

What do they want? For now, “None of the above,” is a valid answer!

200 Posts!!!

Posted on by
12

It’s like one of those birthdays that end in zero.  It’s sort of like any other day – but it’s not.  This is just another post, though it’s something more at the same time.  At a minimum, this is an occasion to step back and reflect.  Here are a few random thoughts about this blog as a work in progress:

I need to update my About page:

This First Gates is no longer about what it was in the beginning.  I started writing about fiction and the process of writing.  Later I included spiritual topics, but from my current perspective, the thread animating all these posts is imagination.  Not only artistic “creative imagination.”  I use the word in the wider sense employed by psychologist, James Hillman, an influential post-Jungian thinker:

“By soul I mean the imaginative possibilities in our natures…that mode which recognizes all realities as primarily symbolic or metaphorical” – James Hillman, Revisioning Psychology, 1977.

I ventured into the realms of politics and economics this summer not for the subject matter alone, but because of the passions involved.  People do not get that excited over literal truths.  Along with Hillman, I’m fascinated by the reality in our fantasies and the fantasy in our “realities.”  This understanding is likely to guide my choice of subject matter in the future.

Am I slowing down?

A bit, at least over the last six weeks or so.  Through spring and early summer I was posting three or four times a week.  Lately it has been about twice a week.  Partly it’s the season and a desire to be out and about more, enjoying the warmth and the daylight while they last.  Related to that are a summer’s worth of neglected yard chores I have no excuse to avoid now that the days are growing cooler.  We also tend to travel in the fall (thought that doesn’t necessarily preclude blogging).

Nerdvana - Wifi in the Woods

There’s an ebb and flow to things like this, and I suspect I will pick up steam again as the days grow shorter and colder.

Enjoying the blogosphere:

When I started, I didn’t know other bloggers, and it took me a while to connect.  Lately the number of blogs I follow has exploded.  Sometimes I am reminded of hanging out with kindred spirits in college.  However naive the discussions, the excitement and fervor often came to mind during the years of corporate meetings, where such qualities were notable by their absence.  It’s trendy to criticize connecting online rather than face to face – as if distance and time zones and schedules are easy to overcome.  As a next-best-thing, this is a pretty decent medium for sharing stories and ideas.

Thanks to everyone:

Let me again thank everyone who stops by here to read or leave a comment.  It’s you who keep me going.  Now it’s time to go read a few blogs and mull over possible topics for post #201.