Donna's Journey

Yesterday morning I walked out of my bedroom, down the hall and into the kitchen. Peew, what a smell. I realized that I had forgotten to have someone take out the trash the night before. We had honey-lemon-rosemary chicken for dinner the night before and the chicken bones were in the trash. Oh, dear!!! The window were opened and the offending trash was removed to the outside garbage can.

Later my husband woke from one of the best night’s sleep he has had in a year. He said he just floated through sleep. He asked if he had snored. He had been sick over the past few weeks and had snored so bad I came out to the sofa some nights. I realized that his snoring was quite subdued last night. He wondered what caused the difference. I smiled and said, “perhaps it was the dead chicken in the house.” He informed me that my analysis was lacking.

Well, I was close. On further study I discovered that Rosemary helps with reducing snoring. So it wasn’t the dead chicken it was the Rosemary on the dead chicken:)

I had forgotten that it was on 31 October 1517 that Martin Luther nailed his Ninety-Five Theses on the Power and Efficacy of Indulgences, upon the Wittenberg, Germany Church door. That was an act of Public Virtue. There were courageous acts that preceded him that prepared the way for him to do what he did, just as his act prepared the way for those who followed, ultimately leading to the Pilgrims coming to America seeking religious freedom, and later to the founding of a nation that honors the right of people to choose their religion, and ultimately preparing a the way for not just a reformation, but finally a restoration.

Halloween is not something I personally celebrate. For over a decade I have had a large challenge with both the origins and the current practices of Halloween. I am not saying that imagination and dress up are bad or evil, no. We have a dress up box and my children can be quite creative.

I received this email today from Vision Forum and thought I would share it with you. The Five Scariest Things You Can Do This Halloween.

The last two pages of my little pocket sketchbook have an idea followed by a poem. My aunt Grace and I had been driving all over Pennsylvania and I looked out the window and saw a field being cut. First the idea and the poem will follow:

The need for some to feel that we must be all alike, is tempered by one with an eye to the future…an eye for a better time. A time when those gifted among us are not disdained, but where all giftedness can flourish and bless us all.

The wheat in the field whisper and bend,
As one dare rise his head above the rest.
He resiliently bends to the wind,
Yet in the quiet sun, he stands regal still.
“I will preserve you from my blade,
with those who stand close to they side.
Perhaps they seed will yield a nobler kind.”

Journals are awesome and they can teach us about ourselves. I must admit that my daily journal has suffered a bit since I began blogging, but I still journal and have several different kinds of journals.

I have kept commonplace books, inspired by 6th great grandmother, Margaret Lynn Lewis who is reputed to have kept one. I have long been intrigued by the concept of a commonplace book. I like to record my thoughts and arguments on passages I read and agree or disagree with. When I see books I am reading on someone else’s list, I wonder what they took from the book. I record passages that I want to remember.

I keep a temple journal. I record when I went, with whom, where we attended, what ordinances were performed and for who. If I had insights into my life or inspiration I record it, I respect that which is sacred. This way I can evaluate and sometimes I see that life is crowding out what is important to me, so, I refocus on first things first, and thinking beyond the veil.

I keep my regular journal in my scripture bag. I can record insights in studying the scriptures, I can jot down epiphanies when listening to talks at church. I also write about everyday happenings. Perhaps I should just print off my blog and include it with my journals.

I am also an artist and keep nature journals, sketchbooks, and inspiration journals. An inspiration journal is where I collect my creative thoughts, perspectives on looking at things, and patterns or designs that strike to my soul. It may have a clipping from a magazine, pages of brainstorming, quotes, a sketch of a design I like and possibly how I would render it through my creativity. Nature journals catch glimpses of God’s classroom, our world, as well as classification information and poetry. Sketchbooks tend to have a little of everything.

In May 1997 my daughter Jennifer was baptized and then I headed out of town for a memorial service for my mother. I arrived a week before the services. Her sister, my aunt Grace, was placing a grave stone on her husband’s grave, my uncle Bill, and was interring my mother’s ashes in a beautiful ceramic urn in Grace’s contemplation garden. It was a beautiful Memorial Day in the very old country town of Creamery, Pennsylvania. We actually walked to the cemetery.

That week had been a wonderful week. My aunt took me to Bryn Athyn , Chad’s Ford/Brandywine, Philadelphia Museum of Art, and Longwood Gardens, among places. Somewhere along the line I picked up a tiny purse sized sketch book 6 1/2 x 4 3/4″, a Pentalic “pocket sized” book. It has flowers from Grace’s garden, sketches from Bryn Athyn, the Brandywine Museum (and N.C. Wyeth’s Studio), and Longwood Gardens. I also wrote a poem in it.

Well, I found that little pocket sketchbook yesterday. This morning I leafed through it and was blown away. I saw a sketch I made of a section of a stained glass window around the altar. “Stained glass…The deep cobalt blue and the deep red glass combined to make a lavender effect at the altar.” What I wrote next totally stunned me. ” I could design a tree of life with fluttering greens, white fruit, and blue sky w/words.” That was written in May 1997. 26 September 1999, my son Adam’s 21st birthday I was out for a walk with my daughter Julia. I felt a strong yearning to create a door sized tree of life. Completely enveloped by the trials of the day, I had no memory of this sketchbook note. I thought my thought that day to be new to me. I had no studio at the time. I had a friend place a 4×8 piece of plywood on my dining room table and I took over the dining area for a few months. What emerged was a 1000+ piece Tree of Life.

The note I read today showed to me again, the power of words. I wrote those words in 1997 and completely forgot them. Then fulfilled them 2 1/2 years later. Another time, back in 1979 my husband and I were teaching a celestial marriage class and we had to write down our longterm and short term goals. We did and forgot about them. About 25 years later I found a slip of paper stuck in a book, it was those goals. All but one had been realized, though we had not thought about the little exercise and try to make them happen.

Doctor’s orders:
* Avoid repetitive actions with my elbow, and back off anytime I feel pain. He told me that it is better to keep using it rather than immobilize it.
* Do crunches because that will help stabilize the bone that twisted.
* Very low impact work in the pool, water resistance, walking in water, light swimming.
I go back Friday.

Over the past several weeks, I have had my chiropractor have to rotate my left elbow back in place several times. It was getting so I could not lift our frying pan. Canning was very difficult.

Several times my left shoulder (and sometimes my right) was so painfully out.

Even my left knee were rotating.

Last week I dropped a bag with 16 frozen pieces of chicken on my big toe, right at the place where the big toe connects to the foot. It bruised awfully from the knuckle of my toe half way up the top of my foot. He checked, the ball joint, and upper arch of my foot were fine, but I fractured my toe.

Last night I was in the living room playing my bowed psaltery and when I got up off the couch I felt something seriously wrong. I could hardly walk, getting up from sitting was painful. I was not much better off today. I had somehow twisted a bone that is very hard to twist, resulting in ligament pain.

So, I went to see my chiropractic sports doctor. He would adjust me and I would get up and things would slip out. He finally got it to stay, but it was painful. No fun!

I told him I could not understand why all of the sudden every thing was slipping. He told me that apparently working on my thesis was far more stressful than I thought and my body had been struggling to hold things in place, now that the thesis is over, everything is going at the same time.

Well, I know the stress of graduate school added pounds to my weight. I was not eating junk, I walked and for a while swam. When I had my lean body mass index done, I was told that the stress was the problem.

I have work to do. Good thing I have a gym pass:) and they have a lap pool!

Why does God speak of “Light and Truth?” Could it be that truth alone, without light of Christ, can fall short?

After science divorced itself from religion, those who embraced the Aristotelian scientific method tried to define truth through logic only, relying only on what could be observed and replicated. So the endless quest for finer instruments of observation. Atheists tend to be boxed in an Aristotelian world, viewing anything outside their observational experience box, as illogical and therefore suspect and weak. Could it be that their insistence that the whole world comply with their boxed sense of reality is in fact, the ultimate weakness?

Intuition, Inspiration, Epiphanies, are added light that help us navigate this world and create things that may at first, to the unenlightened mind, appear to defy logic. It is the arrogance of truth without light that keeps the world in darkness. A pride that analyzes the facts within their limited worldview and rend that something cannot be done.

The real scientists do not divorce light from truth, and are the innovators that create a whole new world. All the while the pseudo intellectuals and pseudo scientists whine, it cannot be done, it is not logical. We have planes, electric light, and even better birth outcomes because men that were willing to defy the Aristotelian priesthood and their limited logic. Yes, Einstein was right that every great idea has been opposed by mediocre minds. I would say minds bent on a surreal Mr. Spock like insistence, a non-human insistence that truth is logic, are mediocre minds. The Aristotelian minded are very analytic within their logical world. They are usually not the creative innovators, they can take something that someone else has done and is working and then apply it in different ways, but the Aristotelian minded are more likely to oppose that which does not fit their model of the world.

The world needs the creative and idealistic,every bit as much as it needs the analytics, if not more. An analytic will rarely actually create, because they are often too busy looking for one more fact, the one that will change everything. The time for the analytic is after the creation, in tweaking and application, and not before, or progress can grind to a halt.
Analytic are prone to think:
* Men cannot fly, it is not logical,
* Doctors are gentleman, our hands are clean, we are not causing child bed fever! Its not logical.
* Sound travel through air, not logical.
and so forth…

I am not saying that we throw logic out, but that we recognize that logic is limited in its scope. Logic is not the end all. It is a philosophy of men. Logic is limited by the instruments we have to create our worldview and interpret that of others. We need light, as well as truth, and light reveals that the real truth is not always logical. Light does not weaken truth. Light expands our understanding and fortifies truth. Light combined with truth can bring wisdom and intelligence.

I was born into a home of an artist. Mom was born of the generational archetype called the artist generation, by Strauss and Howe.

Besides mom being a specialist in computer languages, and earning her BA and MA in Organizational Behaviors, mom was a mom, an impressionist oil painter, portrait sketcher, a very resourceful, creative seamstress, and a great cook, like her mother before her.

Mom inspired me towards art. She took me to oil painting class when I was 4. I love the smells of an artist’s studio or museum. She took me to museums. One of my favorite places to retreat for solace, when I was a child was the Honolulu Museum of Art.

Mom inspired me into getting an education enriched by the arts. Mom took me to concerts at the Honolulu Symphony and at the Honolulu International Center. I love music of all kinds. We would sing in the car, we would sing while we worked. Mom took me to musicals and plays. I love theatre. Mom also had a mother-heart and was often bringing uplift to others and taking people in under her wing.

OK, I am not my mom, but the apple is not falling far from the tree. I am no specialist in computer languages, but I am not computer ignorant either. I too am a mom. I too have my BA and MA, only my BA is in Fine Art and my MA is in Education. I too am known for my cooking, like my mother and
grandmother. I too love to creatively sew. I love to create. Mother gave me her mother-heart. I pass it to my daughters.

What will the morrow bring? I am needing to create. Oh, the Hebrew word in Genesis that was translated as “Created” means organized. So I am busy creating my home as members grow, dynamics change, as do purposes. My creative drive is in overdrive right now, What will come of it?
Apple pies? quilts? order from chaos? sand carving? Fall and winter are very creative times for me. It is also time to take care to nurture my inner abundance. For this inner abundance is what feeds and directs my creativity.

What is 5 Pillar Certification? First, 5 Pillars is a shortening of the phrase the 5 Pillars of Statesmanship. The 5 Pillars are mentors, classics, simulations, field experience, and God. Several, but not all of the founders of the American Form of government, had many, if not most of these elements in their formal education. Several of these men had George Wythe as their mentor and he utilized these tools as a mentor. 5 Pillar Certification is a course of study offered by George Wythe University that can help the student experience, first hand, the use of the 5 Pillars in and academic way.

At first I thought, “who needs it?” I saw a long list of books to read and decided I can do that on my own. I certainly did not feel I needed to be certified for anything. It was over a year from the time I first heard of it, before I changed my mind, and felt that I needed to move forward.

On closer inspection I saw there was genius in this creation. Very few people get this kind of education anymore. We all know about our public and private school experience, we experienced it for at least 13 years. However, few of us have context to understand application of the 5 Pillars of Statesmanship. The 5 Pillar Certification program walked educators, parents and others through experiencing the 5 Pillars. This is valuable for me, one who is trying to apply these methods. It is an opportunity to experience it first, then I could better able to teach.

There is a list of books to read and discuss, and those give a picture of application of various Pillars, as well as other related concepts.

There is an even longer and broader list of books to read and write about. Here one works with a writing mentor that gives feedback on papers written.

Then there are three seminars. The seminars are referred to as Face to Face with Greatness. The greatness I came Face to Face with was those who became great souled. Each seminar has lectures, classic book colloquia, and simulations.

Add to this the experience of actually applying these principles for six months in a public, private, or homeschool, keep a journal of the experience, and a paper summarizing the experience (mine was 130 pages single spaced, 12 font).and what was leaned. Then pass an oral board.

I did the 5 Pillar experience for the educational process that I was to experience, and not for any certification. Certification was a byproduct, not my main goal. I saw the value in experiencing and learning the methodology. It was not even about who from history used these pillars. This was not about vanity and station, but about learning helping others to. I found this experience valuable in moving my education forward, working with my children, and working with others. I do not regret my choice.

This process was well worth the cost, time, and work. I finished my 5 Pillar Certification 10 July 2006.

Boing!?! I bought a bowed psaltery. M y son decided he wanted to learn how to tune and play it. While tuning it the E string broke. He was tuning the psaltery to the DVD. He was doing a great job. Fortunately there are more strings in the case.