A Roll in the Universe

It's New Year's Eve 2012. I'm in jeans and a wool sweater, not in my high heels and sparkly top. My plans for a productive day and a party for one have been sidetracked. I feel lazy and low-key. And thoughtful. My neighbors are not being low-key; they've been shooting fireworks sporadically all evening. I sit here wondering if I should look out my window and see the colors and sparks. Nah. I'll wait till midnight. The neighbors will be bringing out the really fancy stuff then. *** I usually prepare a meditation of sorts for myself, but not this year. I don't desire anything. Is this lethargy or peace? It's definitely new. Maybe I just got so engaged in the end of the world December 21 2012 (in a very fun way) that I've already had my end of the year focus. 2012 has been the most low-key year I've had in years. I haven't fussed with anything. I haven't had any drama whatsoever. What new and unusual I have experienced has gon...

There were only two things planned today: My haircut and taking some pictures of a Bergen still enjoying summer. OK, a vague third plan: Getting off the bus one stop after the usual one. That last was due to the surprise I gave myself going to the Paul Simon concert last month: The bus stop closest to the concert arena was no longer in use. I had to get off around the next corner and walk back along the fortress walls. That evening I saw bluebells growing right out of those walls, and today I was going to try to get a picture. As the bus approached my chosen stop, I discovered that a cruise ship had docked and dozens of people were walking towards the town center. I walked in the back gate to the fortress grounds so I could set my own pace since I had a hair appointment. No bluebells growing out of these walls, but I did see another woman with a camera strapped to her wrist: The "meter maid" photographing possible violators. So I waved my camera at her and exchanged a g...

10 days in a bus can still teach one a thing or two. Like how asphalt will tent in extreme heat, blocking the whole autobahn. Or how upsetting Norwegians find dealing with older German tourists who speak fondly of their time in Norway back in the 40's (I'm sure some US GI's have made the same faux pas when visiting Europe). Or that whatever may be going on financially, the Germans and Austrians still manage to keep the sides of their roads manicured. Or that words like "cup" and "large" don't translate at all. It's "large cup" in English, "grosse Tasse" (more or less) in German and "stor kopp" in Norwegian. My German was terribly rusty, but I did manage to use it. And I discovered that German-speakers have something in common with the French: They love that you try to use their language. So, this year's summer vacation was a bit early for me, and it feels like I didn't actually have a vacation. Still, I...

Sailing out from Copenhagen, on the ferry bound for Oslo, we pass by a long line of wind turbines standing tall out in the water. As "green" as I am, I have never liked the looks of the modern three-bladed wind turbine. There is something about them that bothers me. When I watch them turn, I find that there is no evenness to their rotation; visually, it looks to me like three Barbie doll legs, one "falling" down after another. (I have rarely seen these things moving so fast you can't make out the individual blades.) Apparently, these turbines are not as environmentally friendly as we are led to believe. In the county of Rogaland in Norway, one array is noise polluting a nearby neighborhood. I have read that the maximum three blades on modern turbines is chosen because it makes a minimum of noise. Still, anything that big, rotating in the wind, will make some sound. Another array was put in a white-tailed eagle breeding area two counties north of where I l...

These last 18 months have led me down paths I wasn't expecting to travel. I'm basically challenging my own paradigms. Here are my thoughts about food: I have come to realize that no one can live well and healthy without animals, not even vegans. According to everything I've been reading and hearing about nutrition since I went low-carb in August of 2010, we need agriculture to continue to feed ourselves, but what we don't need is industrialized or petroleum-based agriculture. That type of farming is destroying our soil (which adds to global warming) and our health (lack of omega-3 in meat, for example, and lack of nutrients in vegetables). Organic agriculture preserves soil, plant and animal health, and in turn, our health. Humans are not in competition with animals for food. The logic that vegetarians (I used to be one) buy into is that it's better to give the grain directly to people, rather than feed it to cattle because it takes 6 (or 10 or 18 or even just 2...

How many times haven't you had a house fly or some other flying bug buzzing against the inside of a window? You open the window and the insect still bangs and buzzes everywhere else against the window except where it's open. I've gotten pretty good about talking wasps back out of my apartment when they've flown in. Yes, I talk to them. Or I pray. Basically, I'm trusting the unseen part of nature, the part that instinct relies on, to help me communicate with the critters around me. They sense my energy, my intention. I've experienced this time and again and today I had an experience that drove this point home for me. If you've ever wondered why a fly casually walking on the window suddenly goes nuts all over it when you approach, here's the answer. I approached such a fly this morning, and opened the window for it. It immediately buzzed and bumped all over the part of the window farthest from me. And suddenly it hit me: The fly was panicking. It assum...

A miracle is an authentic switch from fear to love. When we speak from the ego, we will call up the ego in others. When we speak from Holy Spirit, we will call up their love. In 1967, my whole family fell apart. Mommy, Daddy, baby sister and I all ended up at separate addresses. I spent the next eight years living with my maternal grandparents—seven of those years in Norway. I saw my mother every two years during this, and my father and sister not at all. No wonder my parents’ divorce left me in such turmoil. It wasn't the end of just a marriage; it was the end of an entire family. The harm done was lessened with the love from my maternal grandparents. The problem with not growing up under the same roof as your parent(s) is that you end up not knowing them. Nor they you. For over 40 years, my mother and I struggled with having the label mother and daughter, but not the relationship. In metaphysical circles, we are told we get the parents we deserve because we planned it th...

Damen hos politiet ba meg bruke jungeltelegrafen. Om hva? Jo, at nå skal det bli slutt på "stempel" i passet, dette innlimte arket med dårlig bilde og gyldighetsdato. I juni begynner ny ordning med et plastkort (sikkert med like dårlig bilde) og to års gyldighet. Kortet ordnes med personlig fremmøte (som nå), men sendes i posten etter 2 uker. Det vil si at du bør være ute i litt god tid før utløp av oppholdsbeviset i passet i tilfelle du skal reise utenlands. Kortet kan ikke brukes som ID-kort, men må vises sammen med passet i passkontroll. Det med personlig fremmøte kan også endres i fremtiden. Nå skal de ta fingeravtrykk, men i fremtiden kan det være mulig å ordne mye via nettet - i det minste booke tid så du slipper køsittingen. Sa den hyggelige damen hos politiet. This page in my passport tells Norway to let me back in when I've been abroad. The lady at the police station asked me to use word of mouth. About the changes in the residence permit. Currently, ...

I am going down yet another rabbit hole. It diverges from the one I was falling down about a year and a half ago . At least somewhat. All roads lead to Rome, but not all are main highways and will get you to your final destination; they do move you forward, though. My new rabbit hole is all about how, if I forgive everyone and everything, we will all cease to exist and happily so. Some background: I accidentally learned of ho'oponopono . In looking for more information, I ended up reading Joe Vitale's book "Zero Limits" (and I really liked it). All my decades of swearing to affirmations to accomplish something got set aside while I instead practiced on chanting "I love you" inside my head. I have since gone back to using my usual morning affirmation since that seems to be such a good set-up for me and my day. 1 However, the ho'oponopono method makes perfect sense to me and it is far simpler (and more foolproof) than affirmations. Affirmations req...

Yes, this post will be about boobies. Also known as tits. Mugs. Jugs. Bazongas. Melons. Breasts. Breasts and the big squeeze. Also known as getting a mammogram. In Norway, all woman are automatically offered bi-annual mammography examinations between the ages 50 and 69. Just before Easter this year, I got the letter informing me of my first appointment, accompanied by a questionnaire and a brochure, all delicately done in pleasant shades of pale green (now long recycled). Every time I see the picture of a well-endowed woman (they always seem to have pendulous, D-cup boobies), topless, standing next to a large piece of machinery, with one breast flattened between two plates of glass, I cringe. I cringe mightily. Breasts are sensitive and don’t like rough handling, and it hurts like hell to get them squeezed. So I’ve read about breast cancer and mammography and I’ve also read about alternative technologies of spotting growths in mammaries, like shining a light through like wh...

I own the extended DVD set of "What the #$*! Do We (K)now!?" , also known as "Down the Rabbit Hole". I can't remember now how my browsing the internet today started, but I ended up learning a lot about the science in "What the Bleep": It's terribly inaccurate. There are other inaccuracies or downright errors, but for the most part quantum mechanics only work on quantum levels, not at sizes like a basketball or a universe or even a mere atom. And that spoils all New Age claims that it is quantum physics that explain the Law of Attraction or any other woo-woo belief, like spontaneous healing, psychic phenomenon or near-death experiences. Dang. I was so hoping science could explain these things by now. My surfing has brought me to The Committee for Skeptical Inquiry . There I have found good writing, and proper skepticism. Not the finger-pointing pooh-poohing of beliefs, but rather a behind-the-scenes look at some claims and what's factually ...

My dear blog is 7.5 years old. And I have no idea what to do with it. I am not happy keeping it artificially alive via Wordless Wednesday posts. (Ironically, Wednesdays are usually when I feel like writing.) There are things to write about but because I've given myself the rule of not writing about work (at least not in recognizable detail) the one biggy in my life cannot be shared. Oh, what the heck. Here goes (warning, astrology ahead): Once again, I face downsizing. Now, astrology tells me that our department will continue and I'll land on my feet. I want to tell my co-workers that we will be fine, but I don't. We all need to create our future and the best motivation for that is to believe the one we thought we had doesn't exist. We are all aging. I'm the youngest at 49 (eep!). Advantages and disadvantages abound for those of us who are young enough to be used somewhere else in the company and/or have been with the company for over 10 years, and preferably ...

Well-meaning people in the US ship me stuff via UPS, FedEx, TNT and the like (hereinafter referred to as Other Delivery Company, or ODC). The latest to do this was Amazon.com. You know what? They all suck. You know why? Because in Norway, you get the best service from our post office. Seriously. Some mail order firms in Norway will use some alternative delivery system and deliver to a store near you. For an extra NOK 95, I can get my local post office to deliver the same package to my own front door, in the evening when I'm home, if I want. Or, I can walk in the opposite direction of the aforementioned store to my local post office and pick it up myself if I want to save some money. Since I pass by the post office every day to and from work, it's actually convenient for me to use them. The alternative package delivery firms that companies seem to be so fond of are not for regular working people. They are best suited for company-to-company deliveries that take place during w...

The latest activity to capture the interest of the fringe and lunatics (never was that description more apt) is the fact that NASA/the US is going to set off a nuclear bomb and blast our dear Luna out of its orbit. Following the sage advice of others to consider Google my friend (though there are some that would disagree even with that), I have found what the current paranoid hoopla is about: It is the LCROSS mission , which is about finding water on the moon, to see if the moon can support a human space station there. NASA intends to shoot (or crash) a missile into the moon. Some people believe " missile " only means something loaded with explosives, and nuclear ones are the most likely. That has led some people to interpret this as not only damaging the moon, but as damaging it so much it would shift in its orbit or its shape would be changed forever. The truth is, it's all just simple mechanics and physics, and no nukes: Slam something hard enough into the ground a...

(This is an English translation of a Norwegian original .) Today I came across a well-written essay from a Swedish teenager . She was scared to death about her generation. She is worried about what will become of them. They seem to be so self-destructive. They are still embarrassed in the school locker room, while being happily posing in minimal clothes on the web. The Swedish teenager wants to know where we, who were kids in the 60's, are as parents. Why do we not look in on our kids? Why do we not read their Myspace or blog pages? Why do we not insist on making them come home at a decent hour? She touched a nerve in me, and I left the longest comment I've ever written on the Norwegian site that first pointed me to the Swedish girl's entry. This is my translation of that comment : To the Swedish youth who wrote that she was scared to death: I'm sorry. I am a 48-year-old woman, born as the 1960's started. I don't have children of my own, but I do have pow...

I dag kom jeg over et godt skrevet innlegg fra en svensk jente via Aftenposten . Den svenske jenten er livredd for sin generasjon. Hun opplever generasjonen sin som selvdestruktiv; de er sjenerte i fellesdusjen, men publiserer nakenbilder på nettet. Hun savner at foreldrene bryr seg, og henvender seg til oss som født på 60-tallet. Det hun sa fikk meg til å skrive det lengste kommentaren noensinne, og jeg gjengir den her. Til den svenske ungdommen som skrev at hun er livredd: Jeg beklager. Jeg er en kvinne på 48, født idet 60-tallet begynte. Jeg har ikke barn selv, men jeg har observasjonsevne. Jeg har ofte sagt at vi som var barn på 60-tallet var den siste generasjonen som hadde voksne rundt oss - kjente og ukjente - som passet på oss, kjeftet på oss, veiledet oss, _så oss_. Vi hadde grunn til å respektere voksne og regler. Så skjedde en voldsom oppmyking og endatil opphør av både regler og respekt i samfunnet. Det gikk ikke til helvete, men å bøye seg ydmyk for autoriteter var ...

My evening outing to Bergen's cultural history museum to hear a lecture about its collection of mummies and the recent CT-scans taken of two of them, prompted yesterday's Wordless Wednesday and a reminder about an interest I once had: Archaeology. I don't get the fascination with antiques. But make whatever the object is old enough - like a couple of millennia - and I am definitely curious. So when the museum offered a lecture on a 3,500-year-old man and a 2,000-year-old woman and their respective X-rays and CT-scans, I was there. (The photo shows the woman's mummy and her sarcophagus lid; the writing tells us her name was Teshemmin and she was a priest's daughter.) The interest has faded but not entirely gone, and at one point I considered majoring in archaeology. I happily took Archaeology 101 in college and enjoyed all the knowledge being stuffed into my head - until I realized that if I really wanted to pursue this subject, I'd have to do field work....

With a nod to Protege, who did this first : Your Word is "Why" You see life as complicated and intriguing. The only thing you know for sure is that you haven't figured it all out yet. You question everything and believe very little. And whatever you believe is likely to change. You are interested in theories, philosophies, and religions... even if you don't buy into any of them. You are also fascinated by how things work. You'd like to understand as much in the world as possible. What's Your Word? It all fits (me) perfectly. After all, "why?" is the question associated with Sagittarians. ;-)

Normally, I have a plan, a desire for what I want in the new year. Not this time. This past new year's eve, I watched TV, surfed the 'net, enjoyed the fireworks my neighbors set off. I did not light candles to meditate to, write myself a letter, sum up the last year and think about where to head in the new. I didn't miss my usual new year's ritual. The world is currently wrapped up in worries about jobs, oil, food, global warming, wars. None of it matters in my daily life. Not yet. Never has, really. The US embassy has warned American citizens not to participate in any demonstrations, but I have never marched for peace or against war, anyway None of it matters, what the newspapers say. Ultimately, it's not about what others do. There will be no peace between nations if we all feel entitled to react in anger in our own personal relationships. There will be no clean air or water if we all feel our needs justify a number of gadgets that use electricity or that we...

A couple of times people have asked me what it takes to move to Norway. Besides a plane ticket, I have no idea. One of my childhood memories involves visiting all sorts of pawn shops and the like with my grandparents in search of old-fashioned steamer trunks. Big, solid black trunks that open up like a wardrobe when stood on end. Drawers on one side and a big open space on the other. I can still remember the pale green lining. My grandparents found three and shipped their drapes, silverware, books and knick-knacks in them. Their intention was to retire in Spain and they were taking their home with them. Bringing me along for what was to be a summer vacation changed their plans - and my life. I did go back to California, and my first job after high school involved using a computer. Steamer trunks and computers. They both are the reason why, when I returned to Norway in 1981, I got a job immediately because Norway needed data entry operators, and with it, the prized document ...