Serenely dipped springs

If you decide to jump in for a serene dip at Russian John, chances are good that you will encounter some sparky chipmunks, as well as various colored dragonflies. Once in the spring, a pair of brilliantly blue dragonflies romantically clinched together kept lightly buzzing us; and while they elegantly sipped minerals from the spring we imagined we were infringing on their sacred honeymoon site.

Sometimes after sweet animal encounters like this, I enjoy trying to glean some wisdom from examining characteristics of those creatures through animal Medicine Cards. The tale of how Coyote tricked Dragon into becoming dragonfly resonated strongly with some of my own personal experiences. 

We should encourage our young scholars to examine the powerful force of prayer

By Jim Banholzer

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In the 1920s the esteemed Harvard psychologist William McDougall suggested that religious miracles might be the result of the collective psychic powers of large numbers of worshipers. Michael Talbot’s book The Holographic Universe acknowledges this, as well as documenting several  cases where meditative thoughts, intensive prayer, and strong faith in the goodness of humanity all interconnect for healing in various interesting ways that our scientific and spiritual leaders are just beginning to understand at the fundamental levels.

Some spirit-minded scientists speculate that prayer mysteriously creates far-reaching subatomic particles imbedded with hopeful intentions; however, molecular levels of exactly how prayer works will probably remain a deep mystery for a long time; and that’s fine, because if we didn’t have some mystique in our lives, it would probably be pretty boring. Pinning down precisely how the mystery of prayer operates on the quantum mechanics level proves to be elusive, and ironically that elusiveness itself is an element of the great mystery, as documented in fine detail by Martin Gardner in his groundbreaking classic The Trickster and the Paranormal. As, some pet-owners tease cats with laser beams, and the cat never quite catches it, I believe that we are floating in a similar boat under the godly stars within these unexplained realms.

This being said, and as frequently as we encounter prayer, religion, belief, and paranormal phenomena in our daily lives and media, it’s surprising that more public high schools and universities don’t offer deeper studies into these mystical matters. Not only should our public schools permit students to pray in school, if they so choose to do, but I would also encourage that more public schools offer intensive elective studies of kindness, religion, the paranormal, and other related intuitive languages of our hearts and souls.

With idealistic career paths like these opening  up, not only might future leaders of our society come to achieve greater levels of tolerance, but broad-minded spiritual studies also could lead to keener understandings, and perhaps even a paradigm shift for an improvement of the human condition. For starters, I wonder how many people haven’t been enlightened yet by the fact that that Jesus is mentioned in the Quran more than Muhammad is, while also Jesus’ Holy Mother Mary is mentioned in the Quran more often than she is in the New Testament.

Kudos for helpful new Highway 75 traffic light

It refreshing to see that our Idaho Department of Transportation is upgrading the busy intersection of Woodside Boulevard and Highway 75 (near Power Engineers), as well as adding an innovative new traffic signal there. The stretch of road between Hailey and Bellevue is deceptively dangerous, and one merely needs to examine the road fatality statistics to see that dozens of unfortunate deaths have occurred here in highway crashes over the past few decades.

Moreover, those who perished or who were severely injured in this treacherous stretch were not mere statistics; but rather most were close family and friends of our tight-knit community.

In the further interest of safety, I would urge our that our highway department discontinue their use of the newfangled energy-saving lights, which they have “upgraded” to within their signal lamps; as these often do not generate enough heat to immediately burn off the gathering snow from their red and green light covers, during the frequent blustery blizzards we receive in winter.

Two last items that I would like to encourage our open-minded ITD administrators to focus on for our healthy future are: Lowering the speed limit on the stretch between Bellevue &  Hailey to 45 or 50 mph and installing a robust high-walled median strip between the north and south lanes (along with turnouts at the appropriate places of course).

The Blueberry of Angryness

I got bit by a neighbor’s dog over the weekend.

 I was walking out of the shed, and as my back was turned, Blueberry sprinted out from the dog door, gained an amazing vertical leap, and sunk a couple of fangs into my shoulder. This is the first time I have experienced a dog bite for almost forty years. The last time was on my Washington Post paper route over on Swinton Drive in Kings Park West, where a dog ran out from one of the few houses that did not receive the paper, jumped up and nipped me in the midsection, and then dashed back inside the house, where the woman would not answer the door to address my complaint!

Maybe, I let my guard down this time, as I did have a confident record of working as a meter reader for seven years, entering thousands of customer yards with dogs, and although there were a few close calls over that long span, I never got bit once.

It comes largely as an emotional shock, as I had been imagining for a long while, that as much as I am fond of most dogs and enjoy their company, that greater and noble dog-manity was loyally by my side.

It’s true that Blueberry, the dog that bit me, has a sketchy past and a questionable upbringing. But I have been communicating with him much over the past year or two, in the kindest voice and intentions that I could muster up. Now, I’m finding this incident to be disconcerting.

When incidents like these happen, I often turn to the Animal Medicine cards, to see if I can gain a bit of wisdom from there. In this particular case, it feels fitting to examine the card from the contrary position. I haven’t looked at it yet, but my stronger intuition is saying that maybe now is not a good time to turn my back on someone who I believe is aloyal friend, and then be deceived.

Let’s see now what it really says:

http://scottfoglesong.printandwebdesign.com/14-dog.pdf