Current status: (~updated 2024-10-19)

  • I’ve decided to discontinue the “Now” page. I like the idea, but have decided to put the status updates in the Blog itself. This way notifications will come through RSS. In addition, the previous updates will not be deleted with each update. So this is the 4th and final “Now” page renamed as a post called “Life Update 2024-10-19”.
  • Hurricane Milton came through Central Florida October 9th. Lots of problems to others, but no damage in my location. 25% power outage with local supplier in this area.
  • Riding the Roller Coaster: Emotion & Contemplation Workshop. We’ve had 4 of the 5 weekly meetings on Zoom. This was the first, but won’t be the last time it runs.

Reading:

  • Read:

    • The Forever War by Joe Haldeman - thanks to a good review - add link - I’m not into war stories in my science fiction, but this one was different.
    • Night Trouble by D.L. Keur - the start of a new series, character-driven and made me glad to be back into a little fiction.
    • Your Time, Your Way by Carl Pullein - seriously sensible look at how to not spin my wheels and get nothing done. I’m doing more of what I actually want to do and seldom feeling bad about wasting time. I would say that this is not about productivity.
    • Mindful Shadow Work: Exercises For Befriending Your Dark Side, Healing Trauma, and Finding Joy by Aletheia Luna - I’d read part of a book on the Shadow that went into too much depth. I was looking for some practical approaches to Shadow Work and this got me going. Now I feel ready to go back to that book with more depth about Shadow. This is going along very well with the workshop on emotion. Emotions seem connected so often to stuff I don’t want to see in myself.
    • Finished When Fragments Make a Whole by Lory Widmer Hess.

  • Currently Reading:

    • A Town Like Alice by Nevil Shute. I saw this in a tiny library on my walk and traded The Forever War for it. When I was in high school we read On the Beach by this author shortly after it came out. I was impressed enough to recall his name and that he was a great writer. I’m immersed in this one.
    • Working on Yourself Alone: Inner Dreambody Work by Arnold Mindell.
    • In Ascension by Martin MacInnes is my next fiction read. At long last it was my turn to get a copy of the ebook from my library.

  • Depth and Mysticism Study Group:

    We finish The Wisdom of the Desert by Thomas Merton on October 24. The next book will be The Awakening Call by James Finley beginning November 7th. If interested see Depth & Mysticisim Study Group.

Music:

  • Jefferson Airplane - The song “White Rabbit” came back to mind and I got the mp3s of their album “Surrealistic Pillow” which I once had in vinyl.
  • Moody Blues - I remembered a concert I enjoyed in Germany which led me to get two albums, “In Search of the Lost Chord” and “A Question of Balance”, in mp3s to replace the vinyls I lost and couldn’t play now anyway.
  • Eva Cassidy - a new find from a post on Mastodon about her cover of Paul Simon’s “Kathy’s Song.” That song got me to look more into her. I got “Best of Eva Cassidy” and was blown away by her “You Take My Breath Away”. That is not at all like the other music from my youth, but it fits very nicely into my current being.

What I might want to do someday - nothing new here:

  • Digital art for my personal expression not likely to share - I got a Wacom tablet years ago and have hardly used it.
  • Learn more BASH scripting and maybe read a book I have on Perl. Looking for more ability do little jobs with data and also just to have the fun of learning and and writing code.

Previous Now updates: