Rabbit day, today, Augustine and stuff

The

"Rabbit"

under the tree was

"officially"

our first "trick or treat er" this year.................................... Wasn't even dark yet!!!!!! On the other hand or maybe more to the point, Halloween, the day of the pumpkin, has its origins in the ancient Celtic festival. I suppose that since Welsh is one of the several languages included in the listing of of Celtic languages that they might have some of the blame for the "day". Pumpkins remind me of a large field of pumpkins near "Half Moon Bay" and a time driving by one fall day a long time ago. The also remind me of a lot of years where you would have found several neat our front door and in our house, this time of year. I have always been surprised by how "cheap" pumpkins are. I saw a big stack of them in front of the new Smiths store last Saturday and you could pick anyone you wanted for 39 cents. It is hard to figure out how growing pumpkins could turn a profit for a pumpkin grower. Most kids, I would think based on my own recollections, would remember the time that they got a big sack full to the top with a variety of "stuff" when they went out trick or treating. I don't remember people going to the elaborate work to dress up the entrances to their houses in years past as they do today. Since I haven't posted anything in a week plus I suppose I ought to find something "blog-worthy". Truth is I am at a loss to figure out what might be blog worthy. I was excited to order three books yesterday. I recall 26 blogs way back where I posted a list of books read for each letter so maybe getting excited about ordering three books yesterday is worth noting?

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Big Money "P.G. Wodehouse"

The Winter of Our Discontent "John Steinbeck"

Confessions of St. Augustine, "Augustine"

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Wodehouse is a writer that is easy to read. Funny. Different. It will be an easy quick read and will be a good diversion. Winter of our Discontent is a Steinbeck book I don't recall reading? Doesn't mean I have not done so but I figure he too is an easy enjoyable read. It has been a lot of years since I read Augustine. I recall that he had a great deal of influence on the development of Christianity. Development is different that someone who just notes the historical details. I am anxious to go back over his work and see how it may look against the backdrop of my own development of understanding. It will be something I will mark in red and re read and remember where it is on my shelf after I finish the first most latest read.

Fall

Fall colors,

Many of the "posts" that I have made refer to "running". Often I have just got back, or I am on my way. Today I only "think back" to running in the canyon in the fall or along mountain trails in the middle of trees full of bold colors. Something changes when you go outside and it especially changes when you run or find yourself in the mountains or surronded with the bright colors of fall.

Nothing up ahead, except miles, "maybe" .................part 3

22
Miles

Ahead..................

Saturday, still, 2:44 PM. On the one hand today's blog is about over. "Nothing" left to discuss, ponder or write about. Of course how we got to part 3 depends to a large degree on what parts one and two really were.

"What we see around us depends

on what we seek in life"

Moon, lights, and a few miles distant run, part 2 or so

Saturday, still. 11:43. Ran some miles, listened some some ipod songs. Got up this morning thinking about the words to an old song. Pack up the babies and grab the old ladies............Brother Love's Traveling Salvation Show lyrics as a matter of fact. More songs on the "run". Then Lights of ABQ. Course it was about 5 years plus a few days ago that I drove in from the West one night and indeed saw the lights, seemingly a long way from home.

But I'm still such a long, long way from home,

And the road goes on, on and on, on and on.
But the Lights of Albuquerque, will soon be shining bright,

Like a diamond in the desert, like a beacon in the night.

And I wonder if she'll take me back, will she understand?

Will the Lights of Albuquerque, shine for me again?

"Out There", today, part 1

Saturday already and it is 9:44 and this may actually be post number 456 in a long line of posts. Then too as with many of them I am just getting ready to go out to run or I suppose I may have just got back by the time I add to this Saturday post? Speaking of 456 this place "out there" is a "place in space #456".

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More to follow, maybe

Things change: The world melts down, cookies leave, but the grass with the white plume in the backyard is still great

Since it was overcast and a little windy today I didn't get out to run. On the other hand today the International World Monetary Fund warned that debt-ridden banks were pushing the financial system to the brink of a meltdown. Confidence has been in short supply and panic has swept through the global markets. I did turn on the TV this morning. CNN's host for that moment mentioned that this was a good day since we were not losing any money at the moment since the banks and the markets were closed. A news broadcast mentioned that the "only thing we have to fear is fear itself". Having thought a little about "today's events" I figured I would look back to a time a little over a year ago. I recall being in El Paso. It was the middle of the night and I looked up and noticed that my hotel room window had the curtain open. I reached for my camera and wondered if it would take a picture in a dark room. It did. I wonder if it was just "cause and effect" and the consequence of my own decisions that took me to that room or if in some way how it all turned out was a blessing.

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Reality is probably both what you do to yourself and the result that has a mixture of blessings. Reality is "the state of things as they actually exist" or put another way everything that "is". Both the back yard and the mountain to the East seem to be about the same as they were a year ago. Their reality is about the same.

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Yesterday I came home from work and found a open bag of "Mothers Cookies". This company makes a number of different cookies and are perhaps best known for the little circus animals covered with frosting. These are good.

The bag was half empty.

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I could have said it was half full

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It was half empty because I didn't see any of the pink and white animals. You see reality changes when the stuff you want is missing. I was informed that there was more of them in the bag than I thought and that I was wrong to think that they were all missing. In fact I was later treated to several of the "found" critters from the bottom of the bag. This bag was an assortment of regular little cookies as well as the frosted ones rather than a straight shot of the good stuff. One could say that any bag of half open cookies sitting out when you come home is a great thing really, but then "Mothers Cookies" is no more................................. They exist right now but soon they will not be part of "what is". Keeblers has a fair cookie like this one I think. Then on the other hand things will change soon. They are going out of business I learned from a good friends blog.

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Next year looking back I may still remember the hotel room window from the year before. I might think of the world meltdown of the entire financial system that took place this last week. I might think of the day the cookies left the land of "what is". Hard to say.................

Today was the first day of the Balloon Festival. Probably if we had been up in a balloon this time we would have a picture a lot like this one but since we were not this one from a few years ago may work out fine. 650 Balloons will go up and perhaps a million people will watch the most photographed event in the world. At least it was once. Anyway it is also General Conference today and we enjoyed that a lot. I was thinking about the painting I posted yesterday. It was my first exposure, at least that I remember, to an artist and to a significant work of art. It was on the front wall inside of the 1st ward chapel where I grew up. This picture of that chapel is from a time around 1900 but then it no longer exists and I suppose that the picture is all I have. The picture for me is indeed art. Not just because of its impact on the senses but because of what it actually means to me.

Not Alone

Minervia Teichert is a favorite artist for me. She painted the mural on the chapel wall faced each week in the church that I attended as a young boy. She was born in Ogden, Utah and grew up on a ranch in Idaho. The history books show that she became the first woman to be sent by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints on an artistic mission - first to study at the Art Institute of Chicago under John Vanderpoel, and then at the Art Students League of New York under Robert Henri.

Women and western themes feature prominently in Teichert's works. Teichert is known for a set of 42 murals from the Book of Mormon, as well as her murals inside the Manti Utah Temple

This is one of Minerva Teichert's most cherished works. In the image we see Mary Fielding Smith with her son Joseph F. Smith crossing the plains with their ox cart. To the right of the image we see the spiritual guardians that protected Mary Fielding Smith on her journey to Zion, hence the title "Not Alone". At the bottom of the picture, Minerva Teichert gives the title of the image and the date 1847, the year of the great migration to the West.
This is Teichert at her best as she portrays the tremendous faith and courage of the pioneer women.