ENCLOSED PLACE: In the realms of mental and material form

Pathway around east edge of the Pond, Summer 2010
The path I call "Treacherous" - a downhill path with a Cliff into the Pond

cliff

O.E. clif, from P.Gmc. *kliban (cf. O.S. clif, O.N. klif, O.H.G. klep, M.Du. klippe, Ger. Klippe "cliff, steep rock"), perhaps from PIE base *gleibh- "to adhere, be attached." Cliff-dweller first attested 1889, Amer.Eng.

Designing a yard to be able to have a CLIFF and it is little wonder I'm a hermit. My little mother was right, I just got myself too eccentric to hook a husband. Hook was her term, not mine and thoughts of fishing for a husband never cease to amuse me reminding me of jokes relating to the smell of dead fish ... and I laugh. I have yet to find the No Fishing Sign for my pond given the Pond Fish are getting sizable. Today they are beneath a thin layer of ice and are facing another winter. For some of them it will be their 3rd Winter under the ice.

Sitting on the edge of the Pond (a cliff of sorts)
4th of July 2008

Complexity within complexity has always seemed to describe this current earthwalk going back into my own earliest childhood memory. In my reading during my 30's I came across the idea of the importance of your earliest memory. What I would define as my own earliest memory was being in a stroller pushed by my mother and her singing the song, "Three Little Fishies". I discovered the following animation with that song on YouTube:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iK_wrM8OdGY

Within this now ancient memory, my older brother was walking next to me as I was being pushed and we were crossing a bridge with my mother singing her "fish song". I looked down through the slats of the boards of the bridge to see water below. As I grew up this was a familiar bridge we would cross on our walks and riding bikes to the swimming pool. This bridge in my hometown has subsequently been torn up and this street is now a dead end.

I carry an intention to build a bridge across my pond. Since I personally built my own Bog Bridge, bridges are something I enjoy.

In the Apple Tree Flower Bed - looking towards Bog Bridge
When it rains a lot the Pond overflows into the Cattail Bog, Bog overflows into Apple Tree Flower Bed

The Bog is over 2 feet of peat moss,
even after a 4" rain there is little drainage into the flower bed

My questionable Pond Assistants at edge of pond near Bog and Bird Bath Island
This is the Frog Area of the pond and frogs are more quick and clever than above dogs!
The Red Arrow points to the Pond level and subsequent overflow into the Cattail Bog
This area discloses another project needing completion

A VERY happy day in my memories!

Rubber pond liner is heavy and explains my 2008 4th of July Extravaganza and guest list.
My middle brother was Pond Liner Boss during its installation and I functioned as Bossy Woman telling him what I wanted.
I am standing by the Cyprus tree next to the Bog Bridge.

The Bog was manifested before the Pond.

When the Pond was just a Twinkle in my Eye

Bog Bridge was WHY I decided to invest in an electric screw driver for myself.
Tool subsequently snagged by Pond Liner Boss Brother in 2009 and another has replaced it!
There is no way I can repay my brother for his help during this earthwalk of mine

From 2009 Newsletter I mailed out to family and friends:


There are my stories of BRIDGES and CLIFFS as there are stories of BIG STICKS.

I'm always stealing someone's BUTTER, YESHODA and STRINGS that bind

Krishna and his foster mother Yeshoda

The story of Krishna, apart from its historical value and interest, is of great importance to the seeker after Truth. Nothing is known about the father and mother of Krishna. Some say he was of royal birth, and this means of kingly origin, from that King who is the king of all. Then he was given to the care of Yeshoda, who brought him us as his foster-mother. This is symbolical of the fact that the earthly parents are only the guardians, the real father and mother being God. It is said that in his childhood Krishna was fond of butter, and that he learned as a child to steal butter from everywhere. And the meaning of this is that wisdom is the butter of the whole of life. When life is churned through a wheel, then out of it comes butter; wisdom is gained by it. Krishna was stealing it, which means that wherever he found wisdom he learned it, and thus he benefited by everybody's experience.

There are two ways of learning wisdom. One way is that a person goes and drinks to excess, and falls down in the mud, and then the police take him to the police station and when he recovers from his drunkenness he cannot find his clothes and is horrified at his own appearance. This makes him realize what he has done. This is one way of learning, but it is possible that he does not learn. The other way of learning is that a young man is going along the street; he sees a drunken man, and realizes how terrible it is to be in this state; and from that he learns. That is stealing the butter.

-Hazrat Inayat Khan, a Sufi

I am also very much aware of my culture's focus upon correct spelling in my spoken and written English language system that is owned within our Institution of Education overseen by its own priesthood. If my Sufi MENTOR's compiled teachings and lectures sets out the spelling of the name of Krishna's foster-mother as YESHODA in contrast to YASHODA as that found in Hindu studies, I will spell it as I read that word so long ago in my middle 30's.

But then, I have only read from Hindu sources the BUTTER STORY of Krishna as to teach about him being tied to a tree to prevent him from his activities of his stealing butter as a child due to this childish love. BUTTER being seen as but a physical form in contrast to what I call a Wisdom Teaching given to me by a Sufi. I have so frequently said that an etymologist may spend their entire lifetimes learning ancient languages to enable those brief entries, and I come along and STEAL THEIR BUTTER that they churned with their own life energies.

My earth vessel got its name pinned on it at my birth in this particularized form in 1950 from a song liked by my parents. Reminding me of the proverbial twinkle in their eyes when they talked about that song in the later years of their lives with their own special memories of their love for each other that began in 1946.

In ancient times, many thought that spirituality meant being alone in a forest; this thought is dispelled by seeing Krishna and Radha together, thus showing that both mean God, not one alone. - Hazrat Inayat Khan, a Sufi

PARENTING

parent

late 12c., from O.Fr. parent (11c.), from L. parentem (nom. parens) "father or mother, ancestor," noun use of prp. of parere "bring forth, give birth to, produce," from PIE base *per- "to bring forth" (see pare). Began to replace native elder after c.1500. The verb is attested from 1660s. The verbal noun parenting is first recorded 1959 (earlier term had been parentcraft, 1930). (Emphasis mine)

PARENTING is a verbal noun and a term describable as in my own ACTIVE and spoken vocabulary employed easily in everyday conversations since about 1987 when I was 37 years old. I recall the actual Psychology of Child Development textbook from that time in my own life.

My own eyes view this human earth experience in its own unique way and I have to chuckle that the term PARENTING was seen birthed into the English language in 1959 coinciding with the same year as the birth of the Barbie doll when I was almost 9 years old and little girls began getting Barbies not dollies for Christmas.

March 9, 1959 – The Barbie doll debuts.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1959

Connecting or TYING the IDEAS of Krishna, butter, parenting, barbie doll brings to my mind the memories of my 3 brothers that would tie string from one ceiling corner of the living room of my family home to the curtain rods, and the string would become a real maze for them to slide their little plastic army men as if they were parachuting all over the room. This memory also includes my mother walking in to find her living room with string tied all over much like one huge spider web. To my mother this was describable as a MESS and to my 3 brothers it was a project that kept them busy and focused for quite a long time and to this sister it represented a chance for me to play with my toys without their ongoing annoying intrusions.

My older brother that lives in my childhood memories with his cowboy hat that I couldn't touch

This childhood memory of STRING remains today because when my mother walked into the house, she was with a woman that looked JUST LIKE HER, it was her older sister. My mother had been adopted when she was a toddler born in 1927 and once the youngest of a large family to then grow up as an only child. This was the only occasion that I had ever seen or would see this maternal aunt that lived in New York state and as a child was totally fascinated with someone that looked like my mother.

I still recall my mother's real embarrassment at having her sister walk into her living room with string stretching from one side to another and all over the place. As I also recall this other woman looking like my mother be so interested in what my 3 brothers had constructed with string and was not paying attention to my mother's apologies. It was if I had TWO mothers in that room of so long ago. As a child I could not understand my mother apologizing for my 3 brothers activities since it didn't seem to bother her sister one little bit.

I stole BUTTER from my 3 brothers that angered my mother so. It was then that I gained understanding that the term LIVING ROOM was really a silly word since you couldn't LIVE in that room. That was one of those rooms I then adjudged in my childhood concrete cognitive activities as a ROCK ROOM and one of those like a church where I had to PLAY LIKE I WAS A ROCK and sit really still and not mess around.

I chuckle since if someone ever walked into my home, you can be sure to find rocks somewhere given my seemingly innate attraction to them. One of those happiest days of my life was watching a dump truck back into the front yard of this Ashram and dump rocks that I subsequently carried all over the place ... finding a home for a rock demands contemplation and a good excuse to sit on one of my movable plastic lawn chairs with my cup of coffee.

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Krishna is usually regarded as the eight incarnation of lord Vishnu and was born in the Dvarpara Yuga as the "dark one". Lord Krishna is the embodiment of love and divine joy, that destroys all pain and sin. He is the protector of sacred utterances and cows. Krishna is an instigator of all forms of knowledge and born to establish the religion of love.
http://www.sanatansociety.org/hindu_gods_and_goddesses/krishna.htm