Everything Is A Miracle

©2012, Danise Codekas, Corrales, NM., 11 June 2012

The reason people find it so hard to be happy is that they always see the past better than it was, the present worse than it is, and the future less resolved than it will be – Marcel Pagnol.

The forest fires rage around us here in the Southwest. The Gila National Forest fires has grown to about 270,000 acres. 40,000 more than it was when I arrived here 11 days ago.

Seems every time I have traveled far, in the past few years, some natural tragedy strikes somewhere in the world. Perhaps, I just need to see how people respond to it, who are directly or about to be directly, or possibly could be affected by it.

3 of my trips were washed over by three tsunamis. There was also 2 major 8+ earthquakes, and the tsunami warnings along the California Coast highway I was driving in Oceanside, and then in Long Beach, also.

On this trip, besides wildfires near me, or on the routes I would have traveled toward the west coast, there have also been 2 deaths, related to friends’ parents or best friends, job lost by people I care for, oh, and my own realization that one of my thoughts about how a place would work out for me, fizzled in the sand.

I am learning how to deal with life without a touchstone.

Then, my entire life has been an exercise in dealing with the surprises, loses and upheavals, where ever I may be resting that evening.

You learning that too?

 

The wonders of advanced communication networks makes it all possible, of course. In the old days, being 18000 miles away, the news would not reach me until I heard it on an airplane heading somewhere else.

An ancient East Indian asked me, after our flight from Madras took off, what I thought about the Oklahoma Terrorist Bombings. They had just occurred that day, or the day before in the US, the Date Line thing has to be figured into this equation.

When I was a student in Argentina, one of my classmates, who hated Americans, would make it a point to query my feelings about some action made by the US Government that day.

Sorry, I never saw the news, seemed to be a good response since he always snorted, in Castilian accent, and looked at me as if I was an idiot, and verified his lowly opinion of the evil, Yankees del Norte.

Lucid, I was, however, my interest were in things Argentinean, which he did not wish to discuss. I was the wall he needed to throw verbal graffiti at every day in school. He finally laid off the teasing once I started dating, one of our classmates. It is a macho thing that would take too long to explain, unless you are muy macho.

So, today, waiting for the green light to get on the road, that gut instinct that tells me when to go, one friend calls and lets me help him figure out what he should do about selling his business. “Get a lawyer”, is my response. He did not like it, however, being called an idiot by me, pushed him over the edge, and he was speed dialing his attorney, as we were disconnecting, I hope.

Then my dear friend’s mom passed, I just found out, a day after she arrived to help her walk down that road to the end. The day after she arrived to assist. Blessings for all the family, as to watch someone slowly dissolve from human form is difficult. Believe me.

My hope is there is not too much drama with the siblings and others who are called to bear witness to the mother’s passing. I like quiet around me when someone I love dies. It is hard to achieve, I find.

Another close friend, arrived at work to meet her replacement. The person who took her job from her. Her job advertised on her company’s website, that she found out about while she was on vacation. Crappy way to treat a long term employee. When she arrived, the air conditioning broke down. I told her it was a sign to Get Out.

Since it is heading up to 96 degrees today in downtown Albuquerque, hopefully, she will be able to think of someway to get out of the building. Luckily, she was smart and is two months away from obtaining her Masters in IT Project Management, and will find a delightful, challenging new career in the perfect air-conditioned buildings.

My  interview for today was sullied when the headhunter hit Reply instead of Forward to an email, which contained the map, the documents she wanted completed before our a.m. meeting, and required they arrive with me.

Then admitted, when I contacted her, to let her know her docs still had not arrived, that she did not have any job, in my writing/editing areas, but she would call around and ask employers in the area. Hmm. I sort of knew that since she avoided the question, last week, the chances of her having a senior writer/editor position for me was, well, dim.

I think we all know headhunters’ games, right? It is a numbers game and they expect me to be professional, right? I called another headhunter instead. This is the year of immediate, quick connections. Act immediately, or, let it go. The jobs I have applied for in New Mexico over the past 2 years, are still listed, and I still poke at them, every so often.

So, the only thing I question is why the Subaru Service Dealer in ABQ has not called back yet. The Impreza needs an oil change, even though I had one a few thousand miles ago, before this trip. 200 miles short of that 6-digit mileage reminder sticker on the front windshield.

Since I am not sure which way I am headed out of Corrales, and into what type of landscape, Death Valley-esque or Eastern California mountains, better get the oil change, and the free carwash. Which is what it is all about isn’t it?

Free carwash, free advice, free kindnesses, free wi-fi. Open up and share. We are all trying to grasp the meaning of our lives, in places we love or places that are testing us, with people we love or people who challenge us to the depths of our souls, or just allow us to be so we can hear the inner probes and screams, and words of soothing, from the depths of our selves. Ain’t life grand?

What wonderful opportunities we have to do things in this world.

How quickly your and my reality erupts, evaporates or is re-created in the blink of an eye, in less than 24 hours?

 

What planet in the universe would we find so entertaining, so fulfilling to our imaginations, to the exclusion of death, the final, physical blow? Beyond your death or mine, well, that will be another adventure to explore, n’est pas? Except for the outer space thing. I really want to go on that ride someday.

The sage brushes overflow with lovely lavender and blue colored flowers, outside the patio doors. Looking across the Sandia Mountains, at the other end of the patio, the cloud cover brings ash-darkness from raging forest fires at Gila. Awareness of nature is what we are learning at this point in timeline human.

Discovering not only our own true natures and abilities, but those of every living organism around us becomes critically important.

We live in an expanding universe on a rock, speeding through space at 18.5 mps (miles per seconds), which due to the growing weight of humanity, removal of minerals under earth’s crust, and the elimination of thousands of acres per day, of sustainable environments, which CAN feed us all, is shrinking in available living space.

For some this is wonderful since it means more people to sell things to, as the laws protecting nature, dissolve under the hands of government officials’ and mega-national business partners’ signatures, on those contracts signed behind closed doors.

Did you know that the Occupy Movement is calling for supporters to protest at the Bohemian Club’s meeting in N. California, at their 2 week meeting, which starts mid-July? Why was I not surprised, yet, a bit unsettled when I read that the Portland, OR Occupy leaders were then ones who kind of led the way on this one?

Here is the link: Bohemian Club Protest 2012 . Google Occupy Bohemian Grove 2012 and check out the links.

The amount of police and security and number of arrests should be larger than usual for the small, No. California location. The media and how it controls reporting of the protest will be interesting from a sociological point of view of mass media. As many attendees, control major networks and media conglomerates.

Someone, once, sarcastically asked me why I studies mass communications at Berkeley. My answer is the same now. I like to see how those in control use the media to control the masses’ minds.

I loved learning how to create a poll, in controlled language sequences, that would give me what I needed to get funding for projects, government subsidies and donations from the poor, unsuspecting public, such as, me. Finding out how they do it, how info can be bent to get what you want, logically, was fascinating and deeply disturbing to me.

“People were created to be loved. Things were created to be used. The reason the world is in chaos, is because things are being loved, and people are being used.”-unknown

How do those in control keep it? Study mass communications, read Todd Gitlin’s works, and you might be surprised at how easy it is to gain control of a mind, with words, pictures and mindless, intentionally designed cartoons.

So, time to call Subaru again. Hope your day is in interesting one. Be aware of what is going on around you. Life and your work has import, for me and the rest of the universe. Use your time well.

“There are two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle.” - Albert Einstein.