“we are not hedonists, and were not created merely for our own happiness or pleasure”
The grace of a clear mind
Caring for my mom makes me increasingly grateful for a clear mind. Here on the cusp of fifty years old, I am in some senses at the height of my powers. What I have lost in physical ability has been compensated for by patience. What I have lost in mental agility has been compensated for by judgment. Watching her decline, I understand that my mental clarity is today’s grace: it is not mine by right, and will not last forever.
The local HVAC company we use puts out a newsletter with company news (like employee of the month) and a community calendar. It’s hokey and awesome. And, of course, the September issue has a persimmon pudding recipe.
Joscelyn Godwin, The Mystery of the Seven Vowels:
Yet I will add, in all seriousness, that no animal would have served better as a hidden symbol of Iaô than the patient and unmusical ass, which cries as best it can the name of the Unknown God.
I was not expecting to find a joke–much less a funny one–in this book.
Faithful love
From Wendell Berry’s May 2022 Sabbath poem: But the old man knows, contrarily, that this world was made by love. He knows it because that love came to him one time in the person of a girl and it abides in the girl’s great-grandmotherhood. He knows the world was made by love because of his experience of faithful love. As below, so above–an inversion of the Hermetic saying.
I made persimmon cookies today using this recipe. Two notes:
- Under no circumstances should you put raisins in these cookies. I like raisins but that is just silliness.
- Don’t put walnuts in the cookies. Put a single walnut on top.
Found a covid-era bottle of sanitizer. Read the right side of the label.
I have a couple of days off work so I’m planning to get some small stuff done. Things that have been neglected during the last several weeks of heat.
This morning I replaced the ignition switch on my 96 F150. Very simple. It’s been sticking for a while; now it turns like a corrupt politician.
I also picked up some work shirts at Goodwill. Why does anyone buy new when you can get like new for $6?
My fun project will be to install Linux Mint on my laptop. I used Ubuntu many years ago. Don’t recall why I stopped. But I thought about it again this week when @johnbrady mentioned using Linux.
My palm, my eye, the light
serendipitously aligned
and, in a flash, palmistry
made all the sense in the world.
Acting within the ecosystem of the self
I learned two actionable models of the self from Gordon White, which he learned in turn from others: The soul incarnates into three bodies, i.e., the physical, emotional, and spiritual/mental bodies. The center of the physical body is the gut. The center of the emotional body is the heart. The center of the mental body is the head. I prefer the ambiguity of “gut” and “head” because specifying “stomach” and “brain” invites materialism.