Spring heralds summer today and this whole week. And, maybe even for this Lilac Festival coming up! The lilacs are out already, they could not wait either.

Last Friday night John and I took in the Passion of St. Mark as performed by the Calgary’s Philharmonic. Bach’s text was preserved, but not so the music score and we were listening to the 20th reconstruction as these have been interpolated by the various Bach experts over the many years. It was well done as we have come to expect from our local friends of harmony! It all took place in the Knox United on Fourth and Sixth.

On Saturday John and Annie came down to watch the puppet show ‘The Man who planted Trees’

On Saturday John and Annie came down to watch the puppet show ‘The Man who planted Trees’. It was part of the children’s festival, but the story was originally written as an adult readership. However, the two Scottish performers were very professional and the show was funny and well adapted to children and me too at 80 years!

After the show John and Annie were off right away to get Annie to her ‘sleep over party’. I moseyed on along Stephen Ave Mall, stopping by at Winner’s for some socks. Then it was on to meet Elisabeth for icecream at Marcus along 17th Ave. There I joined a long line up and soon Elisabeth joined me. We take turns at buying ice-creams in the summer. We chatted outside in the shade, taking in the street happenings. Elisabeth was feeling a bit under the weather, but had come anyway, which I certainly appreciated after my long walk from down town.

Sunday was warm too as I made my way to the Palliser to meet with friends and listen to Herman’s latest ‘over-thinkings’. Attendance was only four plus the three volunteers. This makes me go back wistfully to the eighties, when we had an attendance of one hundred and fifty. But, this is the way things unfold unless new people are brought in to carry on. This is not easy to do, when the income has to be shared.
I’m doing my laundry and the next load is due at 9:15am; next at 10:10am.

This morning I have a post sleep insight while awaking. I face a very deep sand pit that is well shaped. After some hesitation because of its physical risk I hesitate to even look into it. But I have an inner urge to nevertheless to venture exploring its depth. I do. I become overwhelmed by a sense of being in matter, endless matter all grey with only nuances of greyness, unending no matter [sic] where I go, look or sense.

This is followed by the following insight ‘consciousness is the only possible escape’.

As I look for even the smallest change from this grey totality I become aware that ‘existence in matter is endless!’ This is followed by the following insight ‘consciousness is the only possible escape’. That is the end of this post sleep insight. Then, as I turn this insight over in my thought processes I recall my looking for the first nerve! By this I mean that some years ago I asked my self: ‘If being conscious depends on the brain, which is all nerves, where did the first nerve come from?’

This I researched in Richards Dawkins book ‘The Ancestor’s Tale’. In it I found that an algae like ‘plant’ developed one nerve enabling it to swim in the nutrient stream and thus seek out food actively instead of waiting for it while attached to a rock.

It’s a long journey from a single nerve to the billions that humans have in their brains, but as the cosmologist say: ‘Where there is one, there are many’. This applies to the cosmos and its bodies, but it may just be a ‘law of nature’ or a rule we humans can recognise - be conscious of - within ‘Existence Divine’, which includes all there is.
<10:08am.