DISAPPOINTMENT TO DISTRACTION TO DETERMINATION-SENECA GUNS/NORTHERN LIGHTS/THUNDERHOLE

GOOD MORNING WORLD

Yesterday the first thing after I posted my blog I called my folks to apologize for trying to keep their hopes up that Obama would be defeated.  Of course he won re-election and I had to say I was sorry for my prediction that he would not win.  We re-elected a President who got a smaller percentage of the vote than he did the first time around!  He had less of a margin with the young vote as well.  He lost 3 points among single women.  The negatives were not deep enough.

Nothing has changed in this country except that two candidates spent a lot of money to convince us that they were the ones to lead us in the future.  We are being led only to a fiscal cliff.  We have learned that blaming works.  We have learned people like free ‘stuff’.

So how do we move forward as Obama’s placards said?  I have absolutely no idea.  The House has more Republicans than before so that is a message of some sort.  The Senate has two more Democrats so that too is a message.  Gridlock is what we have in DC and that has been hard on everyone.  Those are the facts.

What do we do with the feeling of disappointment?   This feeling for me felt like having the wind knocked of me.  This happened when I was a child and fell out of a swing onto the root below it.  We had this huge tree in our front yard.  It had a limb on it that was just like an arm reaching out perpendicular to a body.  Dad hung rope over it and we had a swing.  Unfortunately there was a root below the swing that was growing out of the ground.  It was good to stand on to get in the swing.  I discovered it hurt terribly when you fell on it.  As I lay there trying to catch my breath it hurt.  I had a pain in my back and the gasping made me light headed.  Finally someone was saying cam down and breathe slowly.  I heard just breathe…just breathe and my breathing slowed down till I got back to normal. It was a frightening experience I have not ever forgotten.  That is what I was feeling when I heard the results of this election.  It was a huge disappointment to me.  Others cried.  Others thought God had abandoned us.

How do you handle disappointment?  Do you go into a blue funk?  Are you stopped by inaction?  Do you literally or figuratively pull the covers over your head?  Or do you turn to action?  are you distracted to another idea?  Do you set a goal and hit it with a new determination? Is it a combination of all of the above?  I am the latter.

Yesterday on facebook a friend had a post asking if anyone had heard the Seneca Guns in his area.  I had no idea what the Seneca Guns were.  The joke on this thread led to too many tacos.  I simply put three question marks in the comment space. My friend said the noise was not too loud though it ratted the windows and the dogs go wild.

As he often does he share his wit and wisdom and information.  I was interested as after we were married we lived in upstate New York not far from Seneca Lake.  Of course the Seneca Indians had a history there as well.  I was off learning about the Seneca Guns.

http://earthquake.usgs.gov/learn/topics/booms.php

Seneca Guns

The term “Seneca guns” is just a name, not an explanation. It does not tell us anything about what causes these noises and shakings. The name originated in a short story that James Fennimore Cooper wrote during the 1800’s. The name refers to booms that have been heard on the shores of LakeSeneca and LakeCayuga in New   YorkState. The name has been applied to similar noises along the coasts of North   Carolina, South Carolina, and Virginia. Similar booms are called Barisol guns in coastal India. These phenomena have also occurred in three widely separated places around the world. That’s about all we know about the Seneca guns.

This info titillated my brain and I remembered the Northern Lights I saw from a porch in my hometown when I was a teen.  It was really something to see the sky turn a shimmering green.

http://www.visitnorway.com/en/What-to-do/Attractions-Culture/Nature-attractions-in-Norway/Let-there-be-northern-lights/

An aurora (plural: aurorae or auroras; from the Latin word aurora, “dawn”) is a natural light display in the sky particularly in the high latitude (Arctic and Antarctic) regions, caused by the collision of energetic charged particles with atoms in the high altitude atmosphere (thermosphere). In northern latitudes, the effect is known as the aurora borealis (or the northern lights), named after the Roman goddess of dawn, Aurora, and the Greek name for the north wind, Boreas, by Pierre Gassendi in 1621.^[5] Auroras seen near the magnetic pole may be high overhead, but from farther away, they illuminate the northern horizon as a greenish glow or sometimes a faint red, as if the Sun were rising from an unusual direction. Discrete aurorae often display magnetic field lines or curtain-like structures, and can change within seconds or glow unchanging for hours, most often in fluorescent green. The aurora borealis most often occurs near the equinoctes. The northern lights have had a number of names throughout history. The Cree call this phenomenon the “Dance of the Spirits“. In Europe, in the Middle Ages, the auroras were commonly believed a sign from God.^[6]

These distractions led me to a picture that had been posted on facebook after Sandy had hit Mount   Desert Island, Maine, my home island.  The picture showed a roaring Thunderhole.  What a wonder that is to all who happen to see it at it’s strongest.

From the website:

Nothing symbolizes the power of Acadia National Park as much asThunder Hole does.

When the right size wave rolls into the naturally formed inlet, a deep thunderous sound emanates. The cause is a small cavern formed low, just beneath the surface of the water. When the wave pulls back just before lunging forward, it dips the water just below the ceiling of the cavern allowing air to enter. When the wave arrives full force, it collides with the air, forcing it out, resulting in a sound like distant thunder. Water may splash into the air as high as 40 feet with a roar!

This is a beautiful spot to view some of the most striking features within Acadia. Northward is Sand Beach and the Great Head to the right. Southward is the majestic 110 foot high Otter Cliff, one of the highest headlands north of Rio de Janeiro.

Thunder Hole is just past SandBeach while traveling south on thePark Loop Road. The Island Explorer Shuttle Bus stops here about every half hour during normal seasonal daytime hours.

Thunder Hole GPS: Latitude 44.321011; Longitude -68.189330

For more detailed information on Thunder Hole and AcadiaNational Park, visit AcadiaMagic.com.

These three distractions led me to look for other phenomena in our country.  We have Chinook Winds, Idaho Fire Rainbow and of course the Grand Canyon.  The world has the Climbing Goats of Morocco, the Raining of fish in Honduras and Pororoca in Brazil which is the longest wave from the Atlantic up the Amazon.  Yesterday I commented on my friends facebook thread that we lived in a wonderful world.

I will let my disappointment be abated.  Half plus 2% of the US Citizenry have chosen the path we will take for the next four years.  They can own it.  I am going to allow myself to be distracted by what ever comes my way.  I end this post today with the determination to see more of this world.  I’d love to go to Idaho.  I’d like to see the Blue Hole of Belize.  I think I might start with the Black Forest of Germany – I hear they have chocolate cake.

……ONWARD TO MORE MISADVENTURE…

 

 

 

EASILY INSPIRED

GOOD MORNING WORLD

Yesterday I had the opportunity to speak to both of our ‘girls’.  Our daughter was on the road driving home to Texas via St. Louis, MO.  Our Goddaughter was not enjoying her day off as she did not physically feel very well.  The second situation allowed us the opportunity for a long overdue long phone visit.  She lives in N.C.  The whole conversation was wonderful!

She reads my blog daily and was very open with her praise along with a couple of critical questions.  One was so very insightful in that she believed at a point I was struggling for material.  She was indeed right.  She also said part of my postings sounded more like a journal than a blog.  That I thought was an interesting point.  What really is a blog?  Will be thinking on that for awhile.  She was also telling me about sharing one of my posts with a co-worker.  It was the one from my birthday.  She was sharing with the co-worker that it inspired her.  The co-worker asked if she was easily inspired.

Those two words have stuck with me all night into this morning.  Easily inspired?  Was the co-worker suggesting that this is a bad thing or a good thing?  I have been thinking about this ever since our conversation.  Is it good to be easily inspired or is it not so good?

If you are not easily inspired I imagine it would take a huge event or statement or vision to inspire you.  Will it take a view of the Grand Canyon to create WOW for you?  Will it take the birth of a child for an ooh or aah from you?  Does it take the words of Shakespeare or a poet laureate to illicit emotions in your soul?  Doesn’t this lead us to the conclusion that only large events or moments are necessary for inspiration in this case?  From this then can we not reason that many small moments of life pass by without acknowledgement or recognition as important or inspiring?

I AM easily inspired.  I have decided this is a good thing.  I marvel at the morning sun which I may not want when a rainy Monday is my preference.  I marvel at the birds in my backyard.  I love the bunnies that run here and there in the same yard despite my husbands BBGun shots to keep them off his grass.  Give me the words of our grandson reading out loud, despite his stutter, over Shakespeare’s words heard in a theatrical production.  Let me watch this same grandson playing a game of Charades over a Broadway play when I know he is shy about performing in front of others and cannot be on a stage without fainting!  Give me the yellow flower done in pastels by our granddaughter with chalk all over the furniture over Rembrandt.  Let me look at our youngest grandson holding a stuffed animal won from a fair that is bigger than he over the Grand Canyon.  It is the little moments for me.

In the mid 90’s we moved to the Memphis, TN area.  I found myself one evening on a paddlewheel boat in the middle of the Mississippi River.  I had to go outside as I could feel myself welling up with tears.  I stood in the dark on the rail of that ship and cried.  I was from a small town of 1800 people off the coast of Maine.  I read Huckleberry Finn in high school.  Like many in my class I dreamed one day about seeing the Mississippi River.  I had no way of knowing that it might just be possible.  Here I was a grown adult not seeing it.  I was experiencing the river like Huck.  I looked at the stars and moon shining on the river.  I could see the water flowing swiftly and feel the boat under my feet.  I realized how dreams can come true.  Silly?  Perhaps.  It was a small insignificant moment to many inside the boat.  To me it was a dream come to life.  Easily inspired? YES!!!  Please let me ever be so!

If I have mentioned this experience before please excuse my repetition.  It sticks with me still.   As I have concluded, I am easily inspired.

…..ONWARD TO MORE MISADVENTURE…