in an experimental phase with my #sourdough, working on flavor.. whole wheat plus 15% rye, 100% hydration, and a 4 day cold proove is a flavor bomb

final solar project taking shape

This will take 75 to 100 wheelbarrow loads of gravel to fill them, I wonder if I will finish by winter solstice? But otherwise only needs about 25 feet of trenching for wire.

Finally laid out the ground mounts for the final 12 #solar panels of my install. I cleared this area behind the house of trees this spring, but it's been too busy/hot to work on it until now.

 Love Keeps Coming

https://git-annex.branchable.com/special_remotes/p2p/

testing new #gitAnnex feature that lets it be used with just about any P2P network that supports socket-like connections. yggdrasil, fowl, iroh, etc. Expanding on tor hidden services that git-annex already supports.

My test script simulates such a network using socket files with this absurdly small shell script.

It was pretty cool when "git pull" and "git-annex get" just worked over this on the 1st try.

Contemplative Writing 7

1. If you hadn't taught/taken/worked for/ this course what discoveries might you have never made?

Gaining knowledge about what is meant by contemplative writing, learning to write in this style, learning all writing has contemplative elements. Meeting and knowing others in the process. Wouldn’t have been as personally aquatinted with Libby. Honestly garnishing housing as part of my trade was one of the biggest things for me.

Learned there is a value to unstructured time for writers. I’d say most professions/people place almost zero value on unstructured time. I think most of the arts can be benefited by giving people the space and time to listen more deeply to what is bubbling up. Do you have to be creative to appreciate silence/ intentional unstructured time? I think any writer definitely benefits from this time, even if technical writing or researching a science book.

Most people don’t have the liberty of free write time, but my life has given me a lot of it, and so I think the course taught me to value it and encouraged me to continue writing.

2.   What first inspired you to teach contemplative writing?

I actually did teach contemplative writing with my zoom writing group several mornings during covid and again recently, less. I wanted to share this kind of writing I have specialized in with my peers. Some of them had told me they felt intimidated about writing without prompts. Writing has always felt easy for me and I have always been open with my process and I wanted to share that somehow with them.

3.  Did you ever find out what contemplative writing is?

Allowing what bubbles up bubble. Much better with certain elements, especially nature and silence.

4.   Have you been contemplative writing in the past couple years?

I have written a lot since college and the past couple years. For me I feel all my writing has been contemplative but could it have been more contemplative and how?

5.  If you were to start a cw project this semester what do you think you'd choose?

3 days a week of morning practice maybe? Just seeing where it lands. Current new ideas include developing a poetry memoir and completing a long walk.

6.  Are you writing a book about contemplative writing teaching and findings?

What is the plan for it??

I would love to help Libby with this book, fleshing out her intentions for it.

So what thoughts are bubbling up? If I were to sit with myself right now and dedicate a half hour in this silence to contemplative writing, what would come of it? The following pieces that I am about to write were doing exactly that.

Listen for the

deepest bubbles

what are they wanting to say?

A few possible thoughts occur

but I note them elsewhere

these are not the deepest

I wait.

I just sit with myself.

Knowing something is down there.

Every day

I forget the deep thought

when drifting off.

I find myself looking over at my pillow. Then I remember the most recent thought that I classified as deep that I never got to explore. Actually it had come to me when I was driving.

There was a feeling of sadness just because my favorite child is growing so quickly. He is 9. My favorite age is just as they turn 5. Then I thought, I have so much love for these children I watch grow, all the waves of babies. But what about the world itself? Do I not love the world as much as one single human? And if I love the world what about how it is changing recently. I need to explore my thoughts on the world, on America. I do love the world. I do love America.

How did we get here? The president of our nation is moving close to a dictator. He is making all of these bad decisions, pushing poor and disabled people into danger, throwing out the safety nets that keep us safe.

For my own sanity, I have been ignoring the fascist direction our country is moving in, and how it affects the world. Also the threat of nuclear bombs going off seems more and more near, every day.

My heart can’t break for the world, because if I allowed myself to really feel how scary this all is, I would be paralyzed by my own fear. I could not move.

I love the world, so much. It is so beautiful, nature, people, everything. I don’t know what I can do to help. I am so worried about our world. But, again, I can’t let it consume me.

The main point isn’t really to excruciate over whether something is or isn’t contemplative writing, but to realize with openness that all things can be contemplative and then start doing those things in your writing process.

I worked as a research assistant, part time, for several years for a professor of Contemplative Writing. On the job, I got to transcribe the words of over 30 of her students as they reflected upon their experience in this class. Most if not all of her students had life changing experience in the class that she offered. It not only involved writing and working on a large writing project over the course of the year, but also immersion in silence, more silence than they were used to or comfortable with, and also experience in nature and community. Also there was a travel element to the class.

We traveled as a class together to a monastery in Kentucky, where Thomas Merton once lived, plus a Sisterhood nearby, and a Buddhist monastery too, and other years of the same class visited the desert in Arizona.

#sourdough starter died after 4 months in the fridge, ending a 5 year streak

Luckily, I was able to scrape some dried dough flakes from a banneton, that got me a new starter going quickly.

What is Contemplative Writing?

Poetry, prose, journaling, fiction, haiku writing. Any form of creative writing can be seen as a type of contemplative writing, and I have heard it said that even technical writing or scientific research can be contemplative writing. But what makes one form of writing more contemplative?

When I am lying in bed just before I sleep at night, that is a time that I find is vastly more contemplative in terms of my thoughts, though contemplations and original thoughts can occur throughout the day. Really any thoughts that bubble up can be seen as Contemplative and when they are written down that is inherently what contemplative writing becomes.

There is no certain subject or guidelines. No perimeters that constitute contemplative as separate from other forms of writing. But if you tune into your mind, and listen deeply to what you are thinking, you will be closer to these contemplative thoughts, and if you then write down these thoughts that bubble up, that, my friend is Contemplative Writing.

In my college class on Contemplative Writing, several of my peers were writing on a masters level. It probably was the college writing class that stretched us the most. The name of the style of writing, and the course, was Contemplative Writing, and though it accurately represents what is being done in that style, usually when I use the term with my friends, they don’t really understand what I mean by the name. It also takes a lot more words to explain what it is to someone than makes sense for using such a term.

My 2 friends who make up my Peer Support Writing Group, along with me, are vastly familiar with Creative Writing, on a level I would say is equal to mine. I think they are on a Graduate level in Creative Writing, and I have sat down with them many times to lead them in workshops of Contemplative Writing, but it never felt as familiar to them. Everything was new to them. Which makes me think when I talk about Contemplative Writing to other friends who may not be writers, it is probably even more obscure seeming to them.

So what do I mean by Contemplative Writing, really?

Successfully crossed the charging desert via a charger that does not accept CC, only app..in an area with no cell service.

I did drive my car on coal generated electricity, on a highway right down the middle of a coal power plant today. Achievement unlocked?

Proving an EV route thru the Kentucky coal country between me and my sister. This was fully impassible for my 220 mile EV until a few months ago.

Currently at a Hyandai dealership where the chargers have broken credit card readers. Needed to install the Blink app to charge. My phone failed to install from Aurora store so had to borrow a stock Android phone.

(Mind you I have driven 20k miles in this car this year, this has been my only charging fail. This area is just 10 years behind the current status qou.)

A year ago I went to my therapist. “I feel like there is something just around the corner that I am trying to think that I haven’t thought yet. It feels like it would be important to discover if I can.”

“I understand.” Replied my therapist. “What do you think you are about to discover?”

I wasn’t sure. I knew I was sure I was on the verge of a personal discovery, as she said, but I wasn’t sure what it was. A few times it would come up in therapy, always feeling like something important was on the tip of my tongue, but never knowing for certain what it was.

This morning I think I realized something though. The feeling that I am on the verge of thinking something important actually doesn’t seem to just be one thing but any number of ideas and discoveries just around the bend, if I contemplate. The question changes from I wonder what my important self discovery may be to I have a limitless number of ideas and thoughts that always are accessible and really will change and improve my life. I just have to find myself in a place where I can tune into them.

Often that means turning off whatever media I am playing, closing my mouth, and listening to what bubbles up for me. Sitting with it in silence and nature are a big part of this process.

One of the interview questions had asked what writing project I would want to work on if I was to start one this semester. I am already working at least 3 projects. They are not explicitly contemplative, but there are contemplative elements to them, and I think they could be a lot more contemplative in nature if I wanted them to be. The first thing that occurred to me that would make my writing contemplative is if I had some focused time for silence in my process. Silence is what really made my writing contemplative, as I remember. Libby had said she lets what float up, float up. That is a good way to describe what contemplative writing is for me.

Most of the time my mind is either filled with daily thoughts or I have something on like a podcast or some media that inadvertently fills my mind and makes contemplative thoughts hard to come by. When I lie in bed at night before I sleep or sometimes in the middle of the night, original thoughts come to me. Important ponderings. Things that wouldn’t otherwise have occurred to me. Deep within myself there is a narrative, a story I am trying to unfurl, a riddle I am trying to crack. When I am lying in bed before I sleep especially is a time of contemplation. But if I turn off the car radio, turn off my show, or make intentional time for thinking and silence, I can e

One of the interview questions had asked what writing project I would want to work on if I was to start one this semester. I am already working at least 3 projects. They are not explicitly contemplative, but there are contemplative elements to them, and I think they could be a lot more contemplative in nature if I wanted them to be. The first thing that occurred to me that would make my writing contemplative is if I had some focused time for silence in my process. Silence is what really made my writing contemplative, as I remember. Libby had said she lets what float up, float up. That is a good way to describe what contemplative writing is for me.

Most of the time my mind is either filled with daily thoughts or I have something on like a podcast or some media that inadvertently fills my mind and makes contemplative thoughts hard to come by. When I lie in bed at night before I sleep or sometimes in the middle of the night, original thoughts come to me. Important ponderings. Things that wouldn’t otherwise have occurred to me. Deep within myself there is a narrative, a story I am trying to unfurl, a riddle I am trying to crack. When I am lying in bed before I sleep especially is a time of contemplation. But if I turn off the car radio, turn off my show, or make intentional time for thinking and silence, I can experience contemplation in my daily life.

I learned in the book Atomic Habits that there is something called habit stacking, which refers to when you add a new habit by looking at your daily routine and think about a good time something might be added to it. For example, when I write this it is the first thing in the morning. I could add a time of silent contemplation when I first wake up before I walk my dog. That actually might be a good time to add a time slot for contemplative writing into my life.

So if I was to start a new project it might not be a project per say, just a time of day for contemplative writing.

I learned in the book Atomic Habits that there is something called habit stacking, which refers to when you add a new habit by looking at your daily routine and think about a good time something might be added to it. For example, when I write this it is the first thing in the morning. I could add a time of silent contemplation when I first wake up before I walk my dog. That actually might be a good time to add a time slot for contemplative writing into my life.

So if I was to start a new project it might not be a project per say, just a time of day for contemplative writing.

 Writing from my phone.   

Was part time research assistant for 10 years very few hours but did good work and lots of deep matter.

Yesterday interviewed professor.   Was lacking in sleep but she said I did really good as interviewer.  Said my listening was active.  

She'll be interviewing me soon with same questions I wrote. 

Will spur on deep future thinking for us both.

Excited for exploration. 

Before the Ocean Makes her Cry

My friend took her baby to a crowded shore

Her tot dove in and wanted more

I remember the world before the ocean made me cry

before I nose dove into the sand beneath

trying to body surf

Salt water dries swifter

and the shore breeze helps

I learned the water is scary and mighty

I learned to fear the under toe

But even after I was caught in a rip tide alone

I made my way out

and got up early the next morning

because the tide had calmed overnight

I wanted nothing more

Than to swim those waves again

 I just have to figure out what to do for my swim routine during the 6 weeks the pool will be closed.  But it is exciting because they are installing a new salt water system.

 So the pool is closing the entire month of August and half September...

 I'm proud I reached 1 million views on youtube.   Might never really earn much income from it but who knows.   I'm doing better than most youtubers.  So maybe I will.  Stay hopeful. 

One million really is ton.  Isn't it?

 Week 1, 9 laps X 4 days 

Week 2, 9 laps X 4 days 

Week 3, build to 12 laps X 4 days 

Week 4, build to 15 laps X 4 days

18

21

24

27

30

33

36 stand

The pool is cold

But I get used to it

It feels like I'm gliding across the world 

It feels like I'm flying 

I'm timid about freestyle at first 

I'm aware there aren't as many options to breathe

I love moving fast though 

This is my swiftest stroke 

I'm gliding 

I'm free 

I'm soaring 

I'm ageless,

I'm limber

I'm happy 

yes I have started thinking about driving distances in kilowatt-hours, at least locally..

Really glad to have a great cafe with local food only 2 hours of solar from home. Used to have to burn a gallon of gas to get to a so-so place.

In the cafe in nearby tiny town, a farmer bartered eggs for his meal.

MTBF (tomato)