Signs: 100% Quaker. Oatmeal Content Varies, Flavored with Free Will Astrology

RantWoman is meditating upon the following signs and miracles or lack thereof:


Message in recent Meeting for Worship from Pema Chodron, something like "breathe in the pain and care of the world, breathe out joy and peace."

Oh great, the only breathe out message that is showing up right now is a dragon, breathing fire, a very focused centered dragon, but still a dragon breathing fire.

Oh Holy Jesus!


There seems to be a great deal of "the porridge of the Quakers" getting disseminated through our nation's commodity food streams. RantWoman lives around many people who regularly feed themselves from these resources. Many of RantWoman's neighbors disdain "the porridge of the Quakers" and leave their weekly distributions about for RantWoman and other oatmeal inclined neighbors to pick up. RantWoman feels cheaply blessed.

Oh great! RantWoman is well fed and full of energy. LOOK OUT WORLD.



RantWoman is seasoning the following item from a horoscope awhile ago:

Free Will Astrology for the Week of Amay 22
CANCER (June 21–July 22): Don't take yourself too seriously. The more willing you are to make fun of your problems, the greater the likelihood is that you will actually solve them. If you're blithe and breezy and buoyant, you will be less of a magnet for suffering. To this end, say the following affirmations out loud. (1) "I'm willing to make the mistakes if someone else is willing to learn from them." (2) "I'm sorry, but I'm not apologizing anymore." (3) "Suffering makes you deep. Travel makes you broad. I'd rather travel." (4) "My commitment is to truth, not consistency." (5) "The hell with enlightenment, I want to have a tantrum." (6) "I stopped fighting my inner demons. We're on the same side now."

Oh, holy JESUS, RantWoman, are you SURE?


RantWoman has been looking at blog hit statistics.RantWoman is really not sure why a post about MGoF holiday billboards attracted a phenomenal number of hits. RantWoman suspects the attraction is not some giant number of people suddenly interested in Quaker bilboards. RantWoman considers it more likely there is some Google map / branding thing going on, but RantWoman is perfectly prepared just to run iwth what she's got and turn over what the MT thing is supposed to be saying and to whom.


RantWoman notes that her post about cuddle puddles enjoyed a recent uptick of hits.

RantWoman is intrigued that a post from a TED talk by a domestic violence survivor attracted a whole bunch of hits. There is a tell EVERYONE subtext of that link. RantWoman so far has refrained from Tell EVERYONE. Hold RantWoman in the Light. Hold EVERYONE else in the Light too.

Oh Holy Jesus!


Or maybe hold everyone in the Light while RantWoman exclaims "what is it about my face that causes people to need to tell me about their restraining order issues?"


RantWoman has been thinking about Irrepressible Nephew being most assuredly a preteen, for a FEW more months, thinking about life as a teenage RantWoman.

In that vein, RantWoman is TOUCHED to have sparked the following reflection:
http://hystery.blogspot.com/2013/07/when-i-was-18.html

RantWoman means at some point to go a different direction with that prompt an d Bob Dylan, "ah, but I was so much older then. I'm so much younger than that now...." but RantWoman is SO grateful it meant something to someone else.


RantWoman has been basically a fat four-eyed nerd since approximately age two. RantWoman remembers life as a teenager in her faith community with, um, apprehension after the fact. The nicest girl RantWoman's age never came to church because of child custody issues. The two girls who did come thought RantWoman was a tiresome nerd; RantWoman returned the favor: they seemed like snotty empty-headed party animal twits, and impression RantBrother underscored because they all had similar interests and talked to each otehr fine. RantWoman can concede the limits of her Light; these girls no doubt have grown up into fine human beings with no more Issues than RantWoman herself.


Except for the wonderful but not entirely approachable Bernie and Doris of Jr. High, Sunday school was taught by a sequence of perfectly fine thoughtful men but they were men; RantWoman's best grounding as a young woman came from an Older Woman who observed the aforementioned girls being snotty and after that made a point of saying Hi to RantWoman EVERY time we saw each other. That alone was HUGE. Still, it took RantWoman a LONG time to be able actually to talk further about her own spiritual life. There is more to go with this but RantWoman is not going there just now.


RantWoman's Quakerese filter is functioning very badly. RantWoman has some weird brain circuit firing peculiarly and turning ALL Kinds of messages into "shut up." RantWoman does not know whether to be amused or chagrined that it is working really well even for dear old Isaac Pennington.
...Isaac Penington, ... advised:
FRIENDS,
Our life is love, and peace, and tenderness; and bearing one with another, and forgiving one another, and not laying accusations one against another; but praying one for another, and helping one another up with a tender hand, if there has been any slip or fall; and waiting till the Lord gives sense and repentance, if sense and repentance in any be wanting. Oh! wait to feel this spirit, and to be guided to walk in this spirit, that ye may enjoy the Lord in sweetness, and walk sweetly, meekly, tenderly, peaceably, and lovingly one with another. And then, ye will be a praise to the Lord.


RantWoman is remembering a moment from one of the fire department disaster preparedness presentations she went to while adjusting to midlife vision meltdown. RantWoman had a spectacular flashback to a previous housefire. RantWoman had to sit with the flashback only a few minutes to realize it came with a message that needed to be heard by the whole room. RantWoman feels the same way about Issac Pennington; RantWoman is feeling pretty strongly called to elder several people in her Meeting.

Oh Holy Jesus!

RantWoman's Meeting is populated with several people who are too eager to insist on forgiveness without being able to give space for what forgiveness is needed about. There are times of danger and serious interpersonal challenge where just babbling about forgiveness is idiotic, It might be necessary. It might be powerful, but it might not be all of what is needed. If someone is standing on RantWoman's foot by accident it's possible can forgive them but it's still appropriate to ask them to move. RantWoman is grateful to borrow someone else's words about attending to her own integrity and others' woundedness. RantWoman needs her readers' forebearance about testing whether that comment is needed in their own lives rather than insisting on more details from the gospel according to RantWoman.

Besides, look world, RantWoman is not a Quaker because of being any good at this peace and love stuff. RantWoman is a Quaker because she needs all the help she can get. That means DON'T OVERDO IT. RantWoman can forgive a LOT but it's a WHOLE lot easier to forgive when there is some interaction with a desire not to have to keep forgiving new occurrences of the same problem.. There RantWoman goes with more God as personal butler expectations, but anyway....



Next, RantWoman needs Friends' forebearance about assorted brain malfunctions.
RantWoman has been blessed with a built-in very badly calibrated idiot detector. It works like one of those new iGizmos with cameras front and back. The idiot detector goes off all over the place right now. Sometimes there is no actual idiot. Sometimes the idiot is in front of the idiot detector. Sometimes the idiot is behind the idiot detector. Sometimes the idiot detector is blaring because there are idiots all over the place. But RantWoman rides the bus. The idiot detector always gets a vigorous workout on the bus and by the grace of God hundreds of thousands of people get from A to B on the bus idiots or no idiots. RantWoman is thinking that if we all hold that thought it will somehow also shed Light.


Free Will Astrology for the Week of May 29
CANCER (June 21–July 22): Here's a thought from philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein: "A person will be imprisoned in a room with a door that's unlocked and opens inwards as long as it does not occur to him to pull rather than push that door." I'd like to suggest that his description fits you right now, Cancerian. What are you going to do about it? Tell me I'm wrong? Reflexively agree with me? I've got a better idea. Without either accepting or rejecting my proposal, simply adopt a neutral, open-minded attitude and experiment with the possibility. See what happens if you try to pull the door open.

Free Will Astrology for the Week of ....
CANCER (June 21–July 22): "In order to swim one takes off all one's clothes," said 19th-century Danish philosopher Søren Kierkegaard. "In order to aspire to the truth, one must undress in a far more inward sense, divest oneself of all one's inward clothes, of thoughts, conceptions, selfishness, etc., before one is sufficiently naked." Your assignment in the coming week, Cancerian, is to get au naturel like that. It's time for you to make yourself available for as much of the raw, pure, wild truth as you can stand.


Again with the spiritual striptease? REALLY?