Mower, Memories and a Book

Kind of funny that you asked me to note the moon's phases and see if my emotions are cyclical.  Today, after work, I finished mowing my lawn - it was cold.  I mowed until the mower ran out of gas, then put the mower away for the winter.  I put my unused bicycle away for the winter.  Then I planted 15 pink tulip bulbs from the baby shower last spring.  As I finished, it was getting dark, and I looked just over the larch trees and saw an almost full moon.  I remembered what I told you about my old friend's little ceremony and made a statement to the universe about what I would like to release.

So it is almost full moon.  I'll try to remember that.

As I was mowing my mind started wandering.  It is always fascinating where an unleashed mind will go.  I ended up on Christmas Day in the late 1970s.  B#3 gave me a book about The Rocky Horror Picture Show, because I had seen it so many times with a group of friends (some of whom are still friends!)  I laughed, because I like the book, then told him I had this particular book and asked if he wanted to keep it.  The 2013 me wondered why I was so graceless.  Why didn't I say thank you and give him a big hug?

I hit a moment of - What was wrong with me???

And it seems unconnected, but it all started when I spoke with someone from Europe about a recent accident.  A broken radius led to 6 weeks off.  When I broke my wrist, I didn't miss a day.  I didn't miss a minute of work.  I was thinking about the way American workers are treated, and how expendable we are.  It took me sort of into a funk that landed on Christmas, with me berating myself.

Interesting progression...

I also had an interesting conversation with an economist.  We started out talking about the virtual online currency that is suddenly becoming popular.  I had two thoughts about it.  But the talk ended with my observation that there have been societies that functioned without money.  That I believe currency is based in competition.  Cooperation does not need currency.  He understood me.  I was shocked.

That's my day...my strange day.

Then I was exploring the web and I found that Alice Miller has written a book I had not seen before.  It is called The Body Never Lies.  I pasted the review just below.  I have been thinking about it.  Of course, I would love to read this book because her For Their Own Good was so important to me.  But I read this:

An examination of childhood trauma and its surreptitious, debilitating effects by one of the world's leading psychoanalysts.
Never before has world-renowned psychoanalyst Alice Miller examined so persuasively the long-range consequences of childhood abuse on the body. Using the experiences of her patients along with the biographical stories of literary giants such as Virginia Woolf, Franz Kafka, and Marcel Proust, Miller shows how a child's humiliation, impotence, and bottled rage will manifest itself as adult illness - be it cancer, stroke, or other debilitating diseases. Never one to shy away from controversy, Miller urges society as a whole to jettison its belief in the Fourth Commandment and not to extend forgiveness to parents whose tyrannical childrearing methods have resulted in unhappy, and often ruined, adult lives. In this empowering work, writes Rutgers professor Philip Greven, "[listeners] will learn how to confront the overt and covert traumas of their own childhoods with the enlightened guidance of Alice Miller."

And I have a problem with the lack of forgiveness.  I try to forgive because I want to be forgiven.  I will jettison the Honor them part when parents are dishonorable.  We really shouldn't have a commandment to honor our parents.  They should earn it with their loving, supportive behavior every day of our young lives.

Tired, so off to dreamland for me, I hope!

I love you!!

Clare