Lauren Scott’s Review of “Lunar Gazing Haiku”

Poet/Author Lauren Scott (author of the divine poetry collection Ever So Gently) recently shared her 5-star book reviews, and Lunar Gazing Haiku was …

Lauren Scott’s Review of “Lunar Gazing Haiku”

दीपक/ Lamp

आसमान के किसी भी चमकते सितारे से किसी भी बात में,  एक छोटा सा दीपक भी कम नहीं होता अंधकार की रात में… इसकी लौ कंपकपा सकती है, लेकिन फिर भी चमकती है, …

दीपक/ Lamp

September 5, 2024 – Continuing to clear the road and Shrimp of the Woods | Saint Andrews Forest Farm

Cutting back trees that have grown up through the roadway on the north side of SAFF.

We couldn’t wait to get back out to clear some more trees from the roadway. We used the chainsaw, loppers and the string trimmer to clear out another chunk of the road. This time we made it just past the culvert with the shoe lasts. We were pleased and exhausted.

Ferns and trees have grown up through the roadway for more than a decade or two.

We also checked our lion’s mane experiment right off the clearing. Last fall we inoculated beech logs with lion’s mane mushrooms and yesterday we saw the mycelium creating something that looks like it may be what we hoped for.

Inoculated logs with lions mane spawn. We will keep a close eye on these logs after a rain.

Then we took a walk around and found Shrimp of the woods, Entoloma abortivum, a choice edible mushroom down by the waterway at the bottom in the pawpaw patch.

These are delicious treats we sautéed for 25 minutes in a pan with olive oil, garlic, salt and pepper and we had them on our salad for dinner…

Source: September 5, 2024 – Continuing to clear the road and Shrimp of the Woods | Saint Andrews Forest Farm

Trump-backed Senate candidate’s Navy Seal stories not cleared by Pentagon | US Senate | The Guardian

Responding to freedom of information requests, officials with the Defense Office of Prepublication and Security Review (DOPSR) said that after “thorough searches of the electronic records and files”, they found no record of Sheehy submitting a DD 1910 form, required for all such projects, or any communications at all concerning review and approval of Mudslingers, the book Sheehy published with Permuted Press last year.

“We believe that search methods were appropriate and could reasonably be expected to produce the requested records if they existed,” the DOPSR officials wrote…

…Sheehy describes combat zone incidents including the search for Linda Norgrove, a kidnapped British aid worker accidentally killed by a US special forces operative; exposure to drone technology that sparked his interest in the sector; a friendly fire incident in which a Hellfire missile “ripped through my unit when we were mistaken for enemy troops”; a skirmish in which he was shot in the arm; and “various IED exposures [that] produced a couple traumatic brain injuries [and] some shrapnel hitting my right leg and head”.

He also recounts his time with “a small and highly specialized team in Hawaii that … carried out some of the nation’s most important missions”. During that deployment, Sheehy writes, he suffered a bad case of decompression sickness, or “the bends”, while training on a mini-submarine.

On the page, Sheehy says that injury, disillusionment over military personnel policies and an unwelcome desk job offer led him to choose to end his military career – a version of events that does not match his own words on the campaign trail, including telling voters he had been “discharged” owing to wounds sustained on duty.

Sheehy has also faced questions over his changing accounts of how he was shot in the arm, why he did not report it at the time, and what he said to a park ranger about the wound when, in 2015, he was cited for illegally discharging a weapon in a national park.

Mudslinger runs to 325 pages. Sheehy’s time in the military takes up just 25. Nonetheless, Sheehy’s apparent lack of official Pentagon clearance may now add to his list of campaign controversies.

According to DOPSR, a Pentagon body set up in 1949, “a prepublication security and policy review is the process by which information proposed for public release is reviewed to ensure compliance with established national and DoD policies, and to determine that it contains no classified, controlled unclassified, export-controlled, or operational security related information”.

Such reviews are necessary, DOPSR says, “to ensure information damaging to the national security is not inadvertently disclosed”.

Source: Trump-backed Senate candidate’s Navy Seal stories not cleared by Pentagon | US Senate | The Guardian

Book Rev: The Artist’s Way + Be Nice to Yourself! by Kirsten Bett – Happiness Between Tails by da-AL

When I began writing, my journals and conversations focused more on the lives of others than on my own. It took me ages to see my experiences as worthy of interest. Julia Cameron helped me immensely toward that end. Her The Artist’s Way, a 12-week creativity workbook, totally rocked my world. Eventually, the process spurred me beyond journalism and into novel writing (about my books here).

The number of Artist’s Way fans has grown exponentially since her first premiered in the early 1990s. She’s since gone on to publish a long list of variations on her initial theme. Her second one, The Vein of Gold: a Journey to Your Creative Heart, came at exactly the right time for me…

Cover of The Vein of Gold by Julia Cameron

Her It’s Never Too Late takes things a step further. It coaches readers to review where they’ve been so they can dream of where to take their lives…

Cover of It's Never Too Late to Begin Again by Julia Cameron

Kirsten Bett is another author who gleans much value from The Artist’s Way. As much from New Zealand as she is from the Netherlands, she’s published My Name is Wilma: I was called Willem for a day in both English and Dutch. Check out Kirsten’s site to learn more about her and her writing…

Photo of Kirsten Bett.
Kirsten Bett has been a writer all her life.

Be Nice to Yourself! by Kirsten Bett

Reading Week Seven of Julia Cameron’s The Artist’s Way, I came across a line that resonated with me:

“Treating myself like a precious object will make me strong.”

Cover of My Name is Wilma: I was called Willem for a day by Kirsten Bett.

I love that line because I pushed myself to the edge and during these last months I have found out that the result is stress, injuries and feeling overwhelmed. The reason I pushed myself is that as an indie writer, I not only love writing but also the 500 other activities that come with self-publishing. And then there’s your partner, the household, daily walks, a grumpy cat who is not amused you changed his bulky chair for a stylish cat tree. Oh yeah, let’s not forget the 27 hours you put in each week as a customer service agent.

You shouldn’t overuse a precious object, you should treat it with care. On the list above, I ghosted my gym called Fit4Lady. The reason I have not been going is that I am recovering from a knee injury I got in May when walking with my friend Martine. I didn’t pay attention to the uneven road, and avoided falling in the ditch by twisting my knee.

Ding dong

A couple of days later it hurt so much, especially at night, so I went to see Tim, my manual therapist. He gave me some stretching exercises to lengthen the upper leg muscle. That was the one that was attached to the lower inside of my knee, and causing me so much pain. It’s hard to heal. Tim told me to be patient, my GP told me it could take up to six months.

Did I listen? No, of course not. Not until I was complaining to Tim that after only seven minutes of walking, the pain made me stop, and when I continued, it hurt even faster. He explained I wasn’t doing myself any favours, “Just walk around the block, and maybe a few days walk a bit longer.”

Ding dong, I finally got it. Yep:

“Treating myself like a precious object will make me strong.”

Get back your mojo

Being nice to myself means I now walk for 30 minutes and enjoy every step. The same goes for the indie-author process. It has been an eye-opener for me to be nice to myself as a writer. We often say: “Prioritise!” but that just means you still need to do everything on the list, and you don’t, not only that, you shouldn’t. You will get back your mojo if you don’t, then it’ll flow. 

I feel that the morning pages and weekly artist dates of The Artist’s Way have inspired joy back into my entire writing process. For those of you who aren’t familiar with either, the daily morning pages get the whining out of the way and clear the path for your creativity, and the weekly artist date with yourself regains your sense of joy, your creative spirit. 

Yesterday I was reviewing Wilma’s Tulip Field Days, a dark comedy adventure. Months ago, I had sent it to a beta-reader, a co-member of the Alliance of Independent Writers. She saw some issues with the timeline. I didn’t see it, so I put it away for a while. Coming back to it with kindness to myself, made it even fun to fix and I am happy with the result! Stressing to get things done just never is the answer, but treating yourself like a precious object is.

How kind are you to yourself?

Source: Book Rev: The Artist’s Way + Be Nice to Yourself! by Kirsten Bett – Happiness Between Tails by da-AL

Still Happening: Policy, drought and fires combine to affect biodiversity in the Amazon basin – Nature.com | Barbara Crane Navarro

Policy, drought and fires combine to affect biodiversity in the Amazon basin – Nature.com https://ift.tt/3kICSW9 Policy, drought and fires combine to affect biodiversity in the Amazon basin  Nature.com Superforest via “deforestation” – Google News https://ift.tt/2tI2HiE

Policy, drought and fires combine to affect biodiversity in the Amazon basin – Nature.com —

Source: Still Happening: Policy, drought and fires combine to affect biodiversity in the Amazon basin – Nature.com | Barbara Crane Navarro