Today is one of the scariest days of the month for me (a single lady on her own). I pay my bills. Even though they are not all due on exactly the same day, I try to take care of them all at once because anxiety so besets me.

Some might wonder about this, but perhaps their income is greater than their outflow each month, unlike my situation. Writing checks for apartment rent, car insurance, utilities, credit card, and cell phone services, I'm watching my meager savings float out the window, with no returns. Restricting the process to a day or two permits me to forget about expenses for the rest of the month until - bill paying day arrives again! I start getting anxious two or three days before I sit down and face the costs of my existence.

Bills no longer look like they did when I first started taking care of my own expenses in the 1970s. They were pretty simple. We are charging you 12 dollars and fifteen cents for August electricity usage. It is due by September 7. Thank you for your recent payment of $13.01 received on August 2.

Half a page of paper and a return envelope. Not so scary because it was easy to understand (and because I had a job with income, and, eventually, a spouse and family).

Bills now are subdivided into many categories, some with labels that might as well be ancient Greek. Many are unclear about the dates of the service period. The due dates sometimes are shifted. The addresses where the payments are received and processed can be different than the location of the company whose services you are receiving. It's just more complicated.

We have options now that permit us to avoid this monthly confrontation. Automated payments permit companies to have access to your bank account. The amount owed is paid on the date due without any fuss, as long as you have funds in your account. However, I have a computer that is squirrelly and family with some bad experiences with this kind of system. I try to plod more slowly the old-fashioned way, with a stamp and envelope.

Solar Ovens and Lower Branches


As the human population expanded in parts of Africa, and more of the lands were taken over by humans, and severe droughts increased in duration and frequency of occurrence, traditional ways of cooking and building were hampered. Such ancient ways also swiftly put a strain on the natural environment during harsh climactic change.

Traditionally, large leaves were used in many ways to weave structures, to create roofs, and meet other needs. This sustainable housing had been greatly successful across thousands of years. Wood from lower branches and trees was used for carving bowls, utensils, and art and for fuel for food preparation.

But the spread of industrial activity included the clearing of lands, and also disrupted ways of life and survival for many species. The loss of trees, prairie lands, and open ranges dramatically changed the world for other species who depended on leaves and fruit for food, and on migration to obtain food and prevent overgrazing. Human activities also led to severe droughts, the evaporation of watering holes.

One means of human adaptation to these conditions has been the invention of a small oven that uses nothing but solar energy for fuel, and is easily constructed using materials often found second-hand at construction and demolition sites. These are called solar ovens, and have eased the use of wood as fuel. Similar materials are used to create housing. People have come to acknowledge the importance of tree canopies to sustain the existance of life on the continent. Decreasing the harvest of lower branches for food and construction means there is more shade and moisture preserved close to the ground, providing pockets of shelter from the sun for the young giraffe, the zebra, the dassies, the gazelle, for small and large birds. During the heat of day during the dry season, stretched across the limb of an old tree, the lion may still find rest.

St. Francis

St. Francis of Assisi is familiar to many as the patron saint of animals. The images and statues you find are of a robed man with a bird on his shoulder, and rabbits and deer near his feet, and a basket of grain or seeds nearby. We learned in school to sing a prayer he composed. I only remember the beginning of it, but perhaps that is enough.

Lord, make me an instrument of thy peace.
Where there is hatred, let me sow love.

elocution contest

The school I went to as a little kid had a yearly elocution contest. The pupils in each class memorized a poem given to them by the teacher. They took turns reciting it, if they wished to participate. The two or three who did the best job got to recite a poem of their choice at a night-time performance in the auditorium with an audience of family and friends. Awards were distributed after the show.

This tradition must go back quite a ways. In Montgomery's book Anne of Green Gables, dating back to the 1800s, there is a chapter devoted to such a contest.

Our mother helped us memorize a poem or two. I got to participate once in the contest - second grade - and still remember all of 'Little Orphan Annie'. The high schoolers liked to recite dramatic works of romance and tragedy - not very different from what happens in Anne of Green Gables. Their performances sometimes brought tears to the audience.

Some people are natural performers - these contests may have been an entry into a career of entertaining or teaching others. The experience was scary for me, as perhaps performing was scary for other children. It did help me later in life when I still had stage fright giving research presentations to remember I had some experience, and had survived. What I appreciate the most about the elocution contest, though, was learning how to memorize; that people before television arrived had memorized poems to entertain each other; that words spoken or written centuries earlier can be carried through time and be brought to life again and again, person to person.

there's what we see around us
the reality of the chair
and the clothes on the chair
and the crumpled blanket on the bed

and there's what we see around us
the unreality
that fills in the lines
turns wrinkles and shadows and curves
into funny faces
and hollowed out faces
and peaceful animals with no names
and odd protrusions
and odd extrusions

a real and unreal
layered visual world

you could say the first is real
the other merely figment
filled in by your solitary mind

or you could say
the blanks and curves are filled in
by the soup and vibrations
of everything going on
that doesn't fit in your room
with the chair
the rumpled clothes
and the crumpled blanket

3 pigeons and 2 squirrels

A large pigeon stood on a picnic table this morning.
The pigeon did not startle as I approached;
he stood so still that I stopped.
A fellow nearby pointed out the pigeon,
still motionless,
and a pair of squirrels up a tree.
I took out a folded paper packet with the remains of my breakfast,
a sticky sweet roll with walnuts and cinnamon,
and crumbled some of it on the ground near the table.
The pigeon was there first
and snagged a sugary walnut.
He ate it very fast and floated up, as though in delight.
He landed and two others joined him.
They flapped their wings against each other
then moved in a small circle
brushed up together
each one rotating
with wing and tail feathers outspread
fanning them
exposing white feathers on their necks
that contrasted with the dark grays.
They danced
and the squirrels frolicked above my head
along the trunk and among the branches.
I'd be happy to share my breakfast with them all again.

Leonardo's pyramids

Within the book The Science of Leonardo by Fritjof Capra, there is a quote from Leonardo da Vinci that is visually interesting:

"All the things transmit to the eye their image by means of a pyramid of lines. By 'pyramid of lines' I mean those lines which, starting from the surface of each item, converge from a distance and meet in a single point...placed in the eye."

Here's a bit of conjecture on my mind. From Leonardo's intricate and complex drawings, we see he must have learned to visualize more than the images one sees ordinarily. He was able to keep aware of the invisible but real, physical paths between the objects and the eye. The 'pyramid' he describes is not visible to a second and third observer on either side of him. The travel or trails of the light are not usually visible to the eye in a lighted area, and they are not the same for each observer; their separate perspectives would create different pyramids.
 
Though the lines are not visible to the eye, Leonardo perceives them with intention. (Naturally, or did he train himself to do this, expand his mind?) Many of his artistic works and scientific sketches have a complex depth viewers have admired for centuries. His visualizing the invisible pyramid created from light flowing there to here adds dimension to his art. It seems he played with the multi-dimensional objects shaped by those trails of light, creating unusually vibrant representations of what he saw.