Thanksgiving Soul Feast

What a wonderful day with friends and family throwing mashed potatoes around. I had sent a cool thanksgiving card to everyone about playing and shaping the mashed potatoes into to multiple shapes. My friend Marie liked the potatoe shaped Devils Tower with the sound track from Close Encounters of the third kind. I know the potatoes will be flying at her table. I like the shape of the vegetarian turkey leg. The air is full of smells and sound of people coming together and enjoying each others company and helping out cooking with a little eating involved.

I had a slight break while the turkey was cooking and looked out side around 3:30pm. The sun was setting and the lenticular and scud clouds were great shapes and orange colors against the contrast of the dark blue sky. I grabed my camera and ran over to my neighbors house and took pictures from her porch. The color deepened and shapes formed into a flying dragon. It was magnificent and beautiful.

The clouds were coalescing infront of the dragon into this women's shape. It was like the dragon was floating and watching something form infront of it. The clouds were forming into a picturesque sky landscape almost like the watercolors of an artists painting. There is just no substitute for Alaskan Sunsets, intense and magnificent in color and textures.

Attenuation

As I am finally home and having my back warmed by the fire, I realize I have been on a trip of the soul and rejuvenation. I am finally listening to people, whom I am am talking to and not just caring. People in today's day and age do care about other people and will help them when they ask. The hardest part has been for me is asking for help. I always have to be the tough stoic person and figure it out on my own. When I was in Seattle and had an important meeting about getting funding for working at the Salk Institute, could I afford to stay in Seattle a few more days, it would help me emotionally and financially, was a ground breaking dilemma. Do I try and save money and just go back to Alaska or do I take a chance to get funding at the premier institute in Neuroscience. It was a gamble and hopefully the University will reimburse me a thousand dollars. The gamble was one of the best leaps of faith I have ever done for my emotional and financial future. Even though the Arkiteck Studios talk did not go get me a job, I might be able to maybe get funding to work with Salk Institute. I talked with NIH consultants and they told me what type of structure and format to present the request in, while in Seattle. It was nice working with professional and caring people about neuroscience and its expression out in the real world. To many scientists are over worked and under paid to have little time to work with the average public. There needs to be an institution or programs set up between the scientists and the public domain. I deal with this problem a lot since by brother does not believe in evolution. It was very difficult when after a severe rainstorm in Olympia that my nephew and I found a fossilized wood piece that looked just like a rock. My nephew got really exited when he reacted after I saw it. It was a truly raw find and beautiful peace with excellent stereographic lines. I looked at his eager face and my heart melted, but I knew it was my brother's call on what to tell him. So I told him to ask his dad, and he looked a me with a moment of regret. At that moment, I had never felt so weak and wrong. He was looking for new knowledge and information and all I did was shut him down. Did I let my want of being accepted over come my rationality of honor? That truly humbled me and made me realize that you have to be true to yourself. I should have figured out of how to help my nephew, instead of running away and burying my head in sand. I had thought I was able to deal with this type of situation, but life is not like in books. You need to grab the opportunity when it exists like a wise women this summer told me, which I had not done because of the repercussions that I had perceived. I should have asked and found out before assuming like a moron. I am finally listening to other people and seeing if it is valid and what to do with it. Trust me this has been a hard and arduous process that will always be worth standing and ignoring life and reality that other people perceive, but I should have listened to and worked through earlier. Life Live It is what I have always stated. You have to take the hits and the punches and not to allow them to change you. I will always be a good intellectual and caring person, not matter what I do to myself or what comes at me. I have found after the last several weeks that I will always be a good person and care about my fellow human beings. My sense of honor will always be a stone to stand upon even though it might be double edged and not get me immediate gratification, it allows me to be myself and have respect, especially after going to Tequiana, MX. Some people might think that money is the most important thing being in Tequiana, and it would have saved me a lot of money, but it was not me and might have lost my soul. It would have made it dirty and not what I wanted as a beautiful and sweet time in life. An older Shaman came up to me and I listened to her in Seattle. She said this is not what I wanted because of my heart being in the way. Don't let the scarred and scared ones get to you, because you have a heart, but be proud and let it stay a part of you. It makes me whom I am and will help through rough times of my life. Hopefully more people can understand this and help each other. Life is to short, it needs to be lived and loved each precious moment. That is maybe why I am trying so hard to decide to stay in Alaska or go somewhere else. I love this beautiful land and the people are in another league, there is one person holding me back to where I would love to stay, but how do I ask such a good and caring person. Hopefully, I will be able to figure this out and get enough courage someday. It really is hard to write this when I have survived charging Bull Moose and bears, but have not survived yet my own emotional forgivings and fear. I have never felt truly fear till this spring and am trying to walk though it. I do not like this emotion and how debilitating it can make of us. From help listening to a the artist, elder, and bartender in Seattle I will be able to channel it and work through it. They all said I do have the courage to work through it, now I just have to listen and wait. Things will be turning soon and be patient, that I am a good human being and to be myself, with stop trying so hard and only the strongest will come to you. It is a difficult thing to do, but I am beginning to listen.

Halloween in San Diego

The endocannabinoid conference was kicking and running full steam at the HIlton Hotel. The people were nice and really were helping and connecting with each other. There was so many intellectual international people from all of the major continents of the world. It was so neat to hear multiple languages being spoken all at once, like a dissonance symphony of language and sound. The spainards and portguese with their passionate talks. The french shy and quiet talking with in their groups. The germans strong and bringing laughter to the discussion. There were so many different nationalities and personalities, all working on one system and trying to understand its nature and function. I even ran into someone from Ethopia that use to go to school with Veronica Topin (Bahamian former PostDoc at UAF) at Case Western and worked with Musa. The only thing that was missing was Halloween costumes, but all the different types of dress and sounds, it was like a strange and intriguing Halloween.
The collaborative atmosphere was really up and running. We had a large group of graduate students and new post docs go to Nick's on the Beach at Ocean Beach for dinner. We were talking about all of our different countries geography, cultures, and societies, from Ethopia, Spain, Portugal, to Alaska. We even pulled out all of our drivers licenses and compared the different countries. The one thing we all had in common was the drive to learn and experiment with the unkown.