Yesterday aft I went to Chinook to buy the mentioned ‘cardigan’ - I thought - at Eddie Bauer’s. It turned out to be a pullover sweater made of polyester instead of cotton, which has become too expensive I gather. But, my cardigan cum sweater still was the colour green that I remembered and that was one crucial aspect.

ShelfLifeBooks is far more interesting than the storehouse of books cum gift-house, that Chapters has become.

I have no green sweater, blue yes, brown, mustard, multi and one with brown diamonds, while the other aspect was the 30% off! So, I did buy the object of my desire and marched off to Chapters, which had nothing of interest. ShelfLifeBooks is far more interesting than the storehouse of books cum gift-house, that Chapters has become.

I returned to have a rest at 2nd Cup with cookie and coffee, before walking back over to Elbow Drive to catch my bus all the way to ShelfLifeBooks, which I visited only. My purpose was the Memorial Library which was holding Dan P. McAdams’ book titled “The Redemptive Self”. With this book and my new sweater in the bag, I walked home along 2nd street. Once there I tried on my sweater and perused my book, both having found approval, are now new sources of delight and interest!

Yesterday morning was an entirely different experience. After breakfast I sat in my easy chair, picking up on an earlier train of thought. This took me on a close to sleep - hypagogic I think - type of contemplative awareness centering on that first thought. Here is my description of this two hour process.

My starting ‘morning thought’ was that old handed down values and the newly acquired insights need to be combined. That what is essential in the old has to be identified and kept from being thrown out, while the necessary new has to be incorporated, both being essential for our survival as a species. The added aspect of my thoughts was that it is now up to us as conscious beings to make such decisions, rather than using the old tradition as dictates telling us what to do.

We have to add new stuff to the old, if we are to survive as a species which has now become our own responsibility to so do.

My contemplation circumambulated this awareness for this time of two hours. Going over the awareness that we as humanity must now balance our own newly discovered values with some of those that have been handed down to us. We cannot go on without being connected to our roots, neither can we keep searching in the past for solutions for our future. We have to add new stuff to the old, if we are to survive as a species which has now become our own responsibility to so do.

This search for what to keep and what to add is the process we are now engaged in, in our world today. This is common to humanity as a whole, but we must recognise as a process that is common to our being successful survivors on this home planet.

It is not about whose story is the one that should be the dominant one. It is not about one against the other as in a dispute settlement. We are not engaged in a process of dispute, our process is one in which we are learning to work together to define this common goal, not some sub-common goal of one particular party.

Our goal is to discover how we together can affect and effect the survival of our own species, which has now become our responsibility as we are conscious of our situation. This is our revelation for our time: “Be responsible as a species if you want to survive.” In order to start with this we need to recognise the nature of the present global processes for what they are: “Learning to live together.”

But as cosmologists say: ‘If there is one, there are many.’ This is all ours to discover!

This is about as clear as I can make what it was, that held me in my state of a contemplative drift from 9:30 to 11:30, yesterday morning. It is a clarion call to wake up from our slumber to become responsible and self reliant actors in our own tradition and heritage as a conscious species, of which we do not know many. But as cosmologists say: ‘If there is one, there are many.’ This is all ours to discover!
<9:49am~