In Neutral

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Patty and I spent time in late 80’s and early 90’s learning about the principles of Mind, Consciousness, and Thought, as originally espoused by Sydney Banks. Joe Bailey is the Minneapolis based psychologist that guided us through the principles. I think I read all the books, available at the time, on the subject.

The concepts were particularly productive for both of us - simple ideas - very effective. One idea that hit home with me was: “Notice the feeling and do nothing”. The idea is clear your mind... put it in neutral... let your thoughts pass through, no fixating. The consequence is a return to the natural state of well being. Like the New England weather - wait fifteen minutes and it will pass.

I had an image of a lone-standing chair, taken at the time, looking out on Green Bay. It was a favorite image, and reminded me of the concept IN NEUTRAL. While meandering the Oregon coast in 2015, I captured another image, I again call, In Neutral.

In Neutal

Color of Water

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I know big water is generally blue. Technically that is because water absorbs red, orange, green and yellow, leaving blue and violet photons to reflect to our eyes. I look, though, at my images, captured mostly at low light - sunrise, sunset - and I see a rainbow of colors. I love it.

Water reciprocates, affected beautifully by what is Near, On, In, and Under it. I pour a glass of water to drink and I don’t want to see a color. I want it to be pure and translucent. In the big picture though, I love interesting skies and light, reflected beautifully on the surface of water. And, I am fascinated by particle impact from water bottoms and particles in and on water.

I started counting the colors in my image I call Color of Water, captured during the drought of 2012 on Lake Champlain, and I gave up - too many subtle shades to count. Usually my images are more monochromatic, but this unusual site captivates me - I feel something different each time I view the jumble of color - I try to make order of the chaos - I see as my imagination allows.

Dwelling a moment on the color of water recalls to me, the beautiful translucent aqua water off Cayman Islands in the Caribbean and the deep waters of Trout lake near our cabin on Lower White Fish lake, both are experienced delights in the 80’s.

Color of Water

Social Distancing

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I’ve been trying to make sense out of wearing masks after being vaccinated with a ‘very effective’ medicine against this awful flu, which allegedly, unnaturally, started in a lab in China.

Maybe it’s a fight of life’s driving forces of fear and risk taking - are we Evil Knievel or Howard Hughes? - Likely in between, with a lean one way or another.

I suspect I lean to risk taking, but at this time I am driven to making others comfortable and being light about it. I laugh at remembering my dad making light of my frequent comment to him when he had an accounting challenge - I’d say, No Problem.

There is a new verse to the song - What a Wonderful World: I see vaccinated friends wearing masks, Saying, how do you do? They’re really saying I love you.

Social Distancing

Smooth Sailing?

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OUR BASIN OF RELATIONS, The Art and Science of Living with Water is now in Vermont local book stores and can be purchased directly from me by clicking here. Just click on image of book and follow prompts. All proceeds go to Clean Water Advocates, Inc. a 501(c)(3) nonprofit.

Fun in the sun on Lake Champlain, and for that matter, on any water basin, can’t be taken for granted. Crap flows into lakes many ways - I can’t image waste water treatment systems allowing sewage overflows multiple times every year.

Following is an excerpt from OUR BASIN, from the article entitled TEN INVITATIONS INTO THE WATERSHED , FOR MY DAUGHTER, FERN written by Trevien Stanger.

Gratitude. This is a world of water and wonder, my baby daughter, and you’re invited. Your first home was in the amniotic water of your mother, and ever since you’ve emerged from that first mysterious ocean almost two years ago now, you’ve never been far from water. While there are always going to be ten thousand things to pay attention to on any given day, water can be a constant presence in your awareness, a wellspring of appreciation. Notice this fact: every day of your life, regardless of season or mood, water will make at least one appearance into your perceptual field that will invite wonder. Might be a waterfall, might be a rolling fog, might be the light striking the streaming faucet just right - water talks to us as Beauty, and you’re invited to share in it.

The only piece of advice I could ever give you with total clarity is this: accept these daily invitations with gratitude and grace.

Saturday Sail



TRANQUILLITY

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TRANQUILLITY

Tranquillity is hiding - unnoticed amongst 25,000 reflections in my library of images. It now speaks loudly to me. Why it didn’t mesmerize in 2015, at the time of capture, befuddles me. I suspect I am now more emotionally needy of the evocation.

I could call it AtlanticLight15 - pre - Stroke16, the prolonged COVID19, Alzheimer's10 - a longing for less stress - simplicity, calm, quiet; nature’s promise - hope. The Simple prayer of Francis comes to mind - an instrument of peace - where there is darkness - light.

I reflect on Francis of Assisi - he forgoes wealth and material power, and is absorbed in the purity of nature’s creation. I can only imagine the eternal rewards of his words and actions. “Where there is hatred, sow love, injury - pardon… it is in giving we receive”.

Blind Obedience

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Last Saturday, I viewed the documentary SIPE; sex, lies and the priesthood at the Salem Film fest (Click here to watch). It touched me, and not just because the documentary featured my brother Richard’s life’s work, helping sexual abusers and abused victims.

I was close to Richard, at the end of his life, as he invited me to participate in his third, and final, book of poems, SMELL THE ROSES, feel the soil, reach the sky (FriesenPress.com). The three books of poems, written at the end of his life, were a way for him to process the pain of dealing with the horror of hurt, working with abused victims, and being personally abused - a hurt he held inside, for most of his 85 years.

The documentary touched me to the core because the Church’s coverup of thousands of abuses is so hard to understand, and so devastating to the victims, and to a lesser affect, albeit a big impact, to people like me, who looked at priests as special - beyond reproach . The documentary and follow-up panel discussion, helped me understand the awful sexual abuse, and the frustrating wall of resistance by church hierarchy - possibly an impact of the craziness of the Church’s required “blind obedience”.

“You can’t handle the truth” - the famous line from the powerful marine colonel (played by Jack Nicholson) in the move A Few Good Men came to mind after I viewed the documentary. What a great reference to better understand the craziness of ‘blind obedience’. The clergy oath and the depicted movie’s marine corp oath of absolute obedience, up the ‘chain of command’, is strikingly similar. The point in both films is clear - the powerful are not above reproach, and those associated with them, that act with blind obedience to cover up the crime, to be faithful warriors to the family, lose themselves, their integrity, and trust of followers.

Forgiveness is good. Zero tolerance, going forward, is good. Appropriate education moving forward is good… But, we need more for the Church to survive the balance of this century - once not thinkable, now logical. Accountability and authenticity, is necessary.

What if all who knew about sexual abuse, who abetted the abuse, came clean - not likely, but how real powerful and God-like consistent that would be. What if the church freely opened their coffers, and invited victim reparations? - Not likely, but the huge cost would come with real forgiveness and saving parishioners - build trust, and eventually replenish coffers.

Real change can be effected fast, from the top, and much slower, and less likely, as a ground swell, from followers. The Catholic Church, ironically, is going to hell in a hand basket. Get real. Get truthful. Be ministers you profess to be. Practice what you preach.

From Corinthians 13; 4-6: “Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth.”

Clouds form from the volcano, Etna, in Sicily. Life and order on the city below are threatened. Church hierarchy - I wouldn’t shake the earth too much - possible extinction is real. Life on earth is short, and temporary. Changes are inevitable. How will we be accountable for our earthly actions, at the gates of eternal life? Love and Truth will prevail. Soon, each of us will account for our hate and lies on earth. Truth heals. God help us.

Share this message, or do your own blast regarding Love and Truth, as it relates to this Catholic Crisis. Now is the time to speak out for Love and Truth, and for a better belonging, for the relatively few years we have left on earth.

What's the Point?

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It seems life is one big routine, day after day. Days pass, so fast. And, I so much look forward to much of the routine - probably dependent on the routine now - Vanilla latte, hot chocolate breakfast at Parkside cafe in Hinesburg, twenty minute ride over and back while listening to fifties music, nice wood contained roaring fire, exercise (snowshoed today), movies, steam, reading, and a little play with pictures. Shades up around 10am, down before sundown, and bed around 9pm.

One routine I am curious about - My, Minnesota Mike’s, My Pillows (two work for me) disappear from my bedside by the time I go to bed. I, by now, know the favorite stow-away places. Patty can’t imagine using them. I love My Pillows, and now have learned to live with the temporary, daily, disappearance. Maybe it is a cancel culture thing for Patty.

I don’t get the point, with Patty and My Pillow hatred … but there is much to appreciate about routine, living with Alzheimer's. With all the goodness of routine with Alzheimer’s, I haven’t figured out the solution to my nature and community needs. But, I don’t mean to complain - life is pretty damn good for me, all things considered.

Thompson Point

Joke or Not

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Patty often looks for me when I am behind my iMac. The other day, she came around the corner and asked, “Where is Mike?”. I said I am Mike. She said “no you are not, you are grouchy.” I thought she was making a joke, but she wasn't! I could have cried or laughed…. I decided to laugh…. not out loud, of course. And, I watched my words, thereafter. There are times that I just need to drop what I am doing and focus on the moment before me. Patty

WATCH. SPREAD the WORD.

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I’ll be watching - SIPE; Sex, Lies, and the Priesthood (click here to schedule watch) on February 20th, and available through March 4th, 2021. I hope you will too. Richard would be the first to say - It’s the message, that is important to listen to, not the messanger - the message pulls on the heart-strings.

I lost a friend to suicide - I believe attributable to a priest’s abuse, and subsequent institution coverup. I don’t know for sure, my friend refused to accuse, even after realizing the abuse, and struggling with it’s affects - I suspect, it was my friend’s unrequited love.

Richard helped my friend, but, there must have been too much pain to reach a more seemingly, satisfactory conclusion. Richard helped spotlight the problem, and helped hundreds of abuse victims reach settlement - healing - where the abused likely felt some retribution for the seemingly unforgivable, horrendous crime of abuse by priests in power. UNBELIEVABLE.

Richard. Courage.

An excerpt from COURAGE AT THREE AM (FriesenPress.com) 2017, by Richard. A portion of the poem SURVIVOR’S LAMENT / DAILY COURAGE.

III

“I cry. I wail, even shriek at night - at three A.M.

when none but darkness is to hear me weep.

Betrayal real - re-imagined, re-lived - not fantasy.

Do you understand?

So many don’t.

Power rules. Power crushes. Power seems triumphant.

Fear can overtake me, fill empty soul with bleak remorse.

What could have been? For me? For you?.

Can’t let darkness conquer. Hang on until pink light.

Hang on, hang on, hang on …”

THE QUESTION

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My tag line at AIS Planning, back in the days, was Questioning, Listening, and Acting to Enrich Lives. My belief then, and now, is that those three activities are an art, and are most powerful in being effective as a Life-Wealth planner, and, for that matter, with having effective communications, generally.

I vividly remember asking my dad if he loved me, while he was on his death bed. He was 86 years old, and I couldn’t remember him saying he loved me. He cried, while outing the words “I love you” five times. The interchange was important, and impactful, to me. My brother says I was forcefully pressuring him, albeit, not there - but I say, if it is on your mind, and important, ask… and listen carefully.

As a planner I learned the importance of questions. I learned how to ask ‘five questions deep” - why this and why that. My grandson, Emmett, asks why, incessantly. I suspect he learned it’s effectiveness, naturally. I learned about the possible damage of assumptions and ‘leaps of abstraction’.

Now, I have to learn how to, not ask questions. With Patty’s Alzheimer's, questioning results in, never really getting anywhere - it ends up in frustration, anxiety, and even anger. ‘Back away from the questions’ - it is trouble, for me and for thee! Can you image - not having any short-term memory, and having limited long-term memory? What about not finding the words to express yourself? And, not knowing shit from shinola?

THE QUESTION - can you see the ? mark?

OUR BASIN book excerpt

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Trevien Stanger, the curator of the nearly twenty, in the know, authors in the book OUR BASIN OF RELATIONS, The Art and Science of Living with Water, is worth paying attention to!. He relates to clean water and the environment in a way that is inspiring and interesting to read - like Thoreau to me.

Following is an excerpt from one of the three articles he scribed for OUR BASIN, titled TEN INVITATIONS INTO THE WATERSHED, FOR MY DAUGHTER, FERN:

4. A Unit of Perception. But other than knowing the name of your home watershed (the Winooski, which is within the Champlain Basin), how can you develop an intimacy and a sense of belonging within it? The waters themselves will teach you. Try this at least once a season: choose a spot on the Winooski in which you see another stream entering the river (a confluence) and ask: what is that water? From where does it come? Through what types of landscapes and land-use patterns does that stream run to get here? What stories does that water tell? And then, either on foot or by boat, by car or by bike, start exploring that sub-watershed as much as you can. Those water paths will invite you up through many places seldom visited, some of them profoundly beautiful and others quite unremarkable; some of them full of pollution and heart-breaking negligence, others exploding with Nature’s exquisite resilience. In the process, you’ll learn this territory, not as a confused tangle of roads and town names, but instead as an orderly learnable, dynamic place in which humans are truly but one part of the process. You may also arrive at a similar conclusion to the Californian writer and restorationist Freeman House - ”A watershed is a unit of perception.”

Our Johnny Brook

Our Johnny Brook, flows by our, certified organic, Purple Lark Farm, to the Winooski, to Lake Champlain. I have been lost in the nearby woods. My six year old grandson, Emmett, gave me a compass, for the next time I explore the woods along the waterway - what a wonderful adventure.

Order your copy of OUR BASIN for a discounted price of $25 by clicking here and than clicking on book cover image. And, if you know a student of the environment, let me know - Mike@mesipe.com, and I will send them a FREE copy of OUR BASIN, as long as there are copies still in print.

They All Look the Same to Me

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Snowflakes - they all look the same to me. Along the way someone thought to look closely at individual snowflakes and found that each one is miraculously unique. WoW! Can you imagine that?

What is similarly miraculous is that all of us, humans, are unique. Billions of us, each different from the next. WoW! Can you imagine that? Unlike snowflakes, skin deep differences with humans are quite noticeable. Deeper than that though, (we are Nature’s most complex, and gifted souls, ya know), it takes careful listening to free, open, honest expression of separate realities to understand others. Wouldn’t it be boring if we were all the same? Natural diversity is divine. Thank God for diversity.

Waiting Water

Loving What I Have

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2020 spoke to me, loudly - Love all I have. I hear you, and it is good - a lesson well implanted now. One that is applicable in so many ways for me this year - freedom, Patty, clean water, photography - all wasting. Yet I have hope, while loving what I have.

I speak hear, only to my photography, a strong passion of mine. It is a new year - the time that I review my images from last year and pick a few to display for my learning record. I have ten years displayed - a decade of top favorites - a decade to review growth and direction.

It is fortuitous that I captured no new images in 2020 to highlight. It provided the charge to review the 3000 or so images I liked over the last decade and tweak some that attract, using learned tools and techniques.

I am delighted with the results of the exercise. I only worked through 2015 to get images to work - over and display for the year as new images. I have more to look forward to if I have another dry year or so.

In fact, two of the old images rose to the twenty five images I have selected to print large on canvas for exhibits and sale. Click here if you are interested in viewing my best of the best, at least I as see it!

Moon Over Rock Dunder 2015

Oak Ledge Fall 2013

LOVE PRESENCE

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Christmas again - last Christmas seems like yesterday - time is moving so fast for me. Alzheimer’s has slowed life down. So why is time moving so fast? Is it because the shades go up at about 10am and down again about 3pm, the fact we are moving toward breaking our record of 14 hours of bed time, in a single night, or that time left with Patty is short?

Embrace, capture by Avi Sipe in November 2018

The image above, Embrace, captured two years ago, by my talented, award winning photographer granddaughter, Avi, is special to me - a telling tale, a rare capture of our love presence. Avi was smart to play some memorable music while doing a class photo assignment in our Bilder Studio. To me, I will always remember - Patty’s love presence.

My astute brother Richard, said upon his 80th milestone birthday: “The largest task of life is to love. And love is the only thing that lasts; everything else melts away… Age does have its compensations and perspective is one grace. Integrate or despair are the only real choices.”

Alzheimer’s accelerates aging - so many years in so few, albeit, a prolonging hardship. The grace is, a rewarding perspective on what’s important - the presence of love. I focus more and more as I age (faster than I would like) on prioritizing my love, my passions…. SCG… Self-realizing, Connecting, Giving. Thank you Patty for showing me the way with your love presence - what a wonderful life present - listening, caring, advocating - for me, others. It is of your love presence that you will receive Love!

Merry Christmas all, and love to you and yours.

But, We All have Red Blood!

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I love that we all are unique, and yet, we all have the same color blood - we are all part of one humanity - taking separate paths, nature blessed us with. How boring and unenlightening it would be if we were totally the same.

I realize some paths are still poisoned by prejudice, even after so much progress in the last quarter millennium. Prejudice is stupidity. The definition of prejudice is ‘a preconceived opinion that is not based on reason or actual experience.’

Taking a notion well expressed by Martin Luther King - You can’t know a person by the color of their skin, but only by the ‘content of their character’. He expressed his wish for reason, as part of the famous, I have a dream speech on August 28th, 1963, on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial. May we all know reason - my parents did - a gift of reason to me.

I was in about sixth grade and my big brother Richard, when he had the opportunity, came home from the seminary with fellow students, to be welcomed, often impromptu, with a loving mother’s meal.

Charlie Cokley, native to the Bahamas, was my favorite. Mother never commented about his blackness - of course it was obvious, and maybe my first black acquaintance. But you know, it was no different than noticing the color of hair, or eyes, height or weight - just a notice - no opinion - no judgement. If there was any judgement by me, it was admiration, that these men were going to be priests. I had them all on a pedestal.

It was about the same time, sixth grade, that I noticed the Red Head, Nancy, during summer league baseball. I hadn't seen many redheads either - but I noticed and I liked. I ran into her in college. She mentioned that she noticed me too - my dark suntanned muscles shimmering from sweating boy activities, I suspect. We never connected - I never got to know the content of her character.

I noticed Halle Berry too - Not her blackness, but her beauty - one of the mot beautiful, along with Elizabeth Taylor. But these are mind game attractions - I don’t know the content of their character.

I do know real beauty is more than skin deep, or any other physical feature! Reason Rules. And, I love Color.

Color

PREORDERS FOR OUR BASIN OF RELATIONS

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I am happy to announce that preorders are now being taken for the public version of OUR BASIN OF RELATIONS, The Art and Science of Living with Water.

Thanks to donors, we are giving a number of books to interested students of clean water. And, we are selling the book for $25 to others- substantially reduced from shelf-value.

Order your copy by clicking HERE

Publication of the book is targeted for 12/15/2020.

Lake Champlain - Rock Dunder, Four Brothers, September 21st, 2015

Gratitude is Priceless

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From gratitude comes exhilaration - climatic and sustaining. Exhilaration is of the greatest of emotions, and there is no price to obtain - just our choice.

I go to my internal world to contemplate my passions and priorities - the mind is a mysterious thing. Attitude can transform a mood from bad to good - I am grateful to have experienced it.

Thanksgiving 1997, my brother-in-law, Jim said All is gift - those words have marinated with me since. The concept contributed to my revelation of the importance of a personal focus on Self-realizing, Connecting, and Giving. Jim died two weeks after that personally impacting Thanksgiving of 1997.

This Thanksgiving season, my sister Bernadette was asked - What are you grateful for - she responded - Everything. Bernadette was recently diagnosed with Parkinson’s, and is moving into assisted living.

It seems that potential imminent loss of life prompts appreciation for all we have, and all we are able to give back. Really, life is relatively short for all of us - an attitude check, anyone?

Happy Thanksgiving. Here’s to gratitudinal (my word) exhilaration!

Transformation