Thursday, September 2
We are still studying Ramana Maharshi in meditation class. Last night I taught Miles and Monica to meditate after class; they had both come to months of classes as preparation. Afterwards, Kerry joined us and we went outside and pulled some spent vines off the lilac tree. It was nice to have some company in the night gardens, but it was more wonderful to be again be working alongside young meditators in the gardens. I had forgotten the depth of that Joy. My young meditators from past years are now out in the world, many with their own children. But now once again we have high school and college students in class - new generations, and all the wonder and striving that youth brings. The older meditators bring a Calm and a Knowing to class, and all in all I love the balance that the different generations create. Some of our class members were with me when I first began teaching meditation, so many years ago ... Walking alone in the coolness of the night, I remembered the class when I taught my students how to bless and protect every house they passed - we had taken a walk together that night, a field trip. And then I remembered the night when Clayton was still with us, when I had sent them all out to look at the moon ... The classes on Zen, on Saint Francis ... The coal stove burning brightly, throwing its heat across the room; in those days the younger students brought in coal and wood after classes ... All the special souls that have been sent to me ...
How could one ever measure the depth of that Connection and Recognition ...
Wednesday, September 8
A very grey, rainy, and cool day. And I must admit a relief after yesterday’s heat. The cat Oleg is in the tv room window, happily leaning against the screen. The south upstairs windows all look out onto the grape arbor, now a tangle of beautiful leaves and vines. We are surrounded by trees in the back, all sizes and sorts and shapes. From here I can barely see the ground and flowers of the back garden, but more keep company with the grape arbor and vines and tree tops. Further away a lone path to the street, by the wooden fence. A landscape familiar to the squirrels and birds, a glimpse of their vantage point of our complicated and busy human world. Perhaps one day I will paint it ... Meanwhile I gaze on the scene as though a visitor - I am so used to seeing the gardens from the ground ...
Thursday, September 9
Today an e-mail from Diana:
“Laurie,
I have definitively determined just now that the first three sections are finished. Only section four (your manuscript text) has to be formatted (my job).
Then all that remains are: the "end pages," the table of contents ....and the re-designed cover, which will give me something very inspiring to work on in Ithaca.
For section three, I found a list called "Section Three, 2nd Round of Corrections" - if I'm interpreting my own organization notes properly, I have already finished those corrections. However, there was one notation that didn't look like it had been dealt with, and that's a note from you that says "after chapter 13, "A Visit from Our Lady" section 3, "from now on all the footnotes are off by one."
You already sent me the corrected version of Section IV. So as far as I know, I'm good to go on adding those stories to my format. I notice that the files that are online are for sections 1, 2, 3. So I'm going to presume that those are DONE.... unless I find out that we have footnotes out of place on section 3. That will be my first task in getting back to work w/ the angels.”
After reading her e-mail, I quickly wrote Diana back, and asked her to just let me know when she conclusively thought sections were done - and I would recheck them then. Frankly, her e-mail left me as confused - or perhaps more - than ever. It reminded me that when doing this sort of mental correction work on the books it is all held in a very fragile and individual way in our thoughts; we each have to understand and decode the tangle of information in our own fashion and time. Not to mention that I had almost forgotten our shared dread of footnotes. My blood ran cold reading the innocent, yet foreboding, sentence: However, there was one notation that didn't look like it had been dealt with, and that's a note from you that says "after chapter 13, "A Visit from Our Lady" section 3, "from now on all the footnotes are off by one."
Friday, September 10
Some leaves are beginning to turn autumn colours, here and there. Diana’s visit to Ithaca is only weeks away. The first few days she is here, we will go to Windgarth House to work, away from the various distractions of town.
Diana seems most looking forward to redesigning the Angel book cover, but my goal is to get all the corrections finished for both books. To do that sort of work by e-mail is, at root, nightmare material. Perhaps I can also dissuade her from reworking the cover while she is here ... I happen to very much like it the way it is.