Monday, December 23, 2013

Of Numbers -

Many years have gone my since an essay I wrote was published.  I continue to be haunted by the values and virtues of numbers.  They are in and out of my life, and today I give you this revision.    


Of Numbers and Thirty-three Miners from Chile


  The television screen was dark, and I knew all was right for the thirty-three miners rescued from the underworld of Chile after sixty-nine days.  How curious: thirty-three, sixty-nine, perhaps nothing more than a series of threes. And yet how important were numbers for us? Aside from general accounting endeavors, I did not always pay attention to numbers and what they represented. The miners were safe and did not need my concerns, but numbers danced around me, prodding or rescuing something a long time swelling in the caches of my wandering mind.
  I had witnessed something grand within the human spirit, and words such as endurance, gratitude and tenacity came to mind, but that was not all. I became aware of an unending order, an apparent requisite to the workings of the universe and humanity. My thoughts were not revolutionary; they were part of things left mostly unnoticed. Yet for thousands of years men knew of a golden order around, above and within each of us. The numbers related to Chilean miners were simply a trigger to pause, think and explore what was in front of me.
  I turned my palms to the light with no recall of the last time I looked and examined the hands I used and abused without a thought, and certainly took for granted until I broke one. The smoothness of youth had given way to minute crevices, too many to count. Still, they were well serviceable, and I wondered how long since my last inspection. Was I a programmable machine using convenient implements I never noticed?   My own digits had built a mountain of memories, too many to count today, but watching my hands was not a memory, it was a reality. 
  A feeling vague yet intense, if that is possible, happened when the television went dark. An inner light illuminated something for me to scrutinize. The motion of opening my hands was an aperture for viewing a world of identifiable and palpable mysteries. A cooperative unity with the universe granted me the seed to grow an idea. First I had to consider the unconventionality of my thinking; once done, an inventory followed.  The exploration of archetypical numbers began. With no conscious intention, I began to explore what I found to be key to something greater than ten fingers attached to my open hands. 
  Obliging the caprices of my psyche, my palms gave me an accounting long known by others. I gazed at each hand, and knew the unfolding of time had not changed their particular attributes. The finding was obvious, four fingers and a thumb on each end of my arms. The number ten reminded me of sequences used the world over: 100, 1000, ad infinitum!  The rescued miners did not have much to do about my unearthing of my mental gesticulation. 
       I counted the phalanges, (boned sections) of each of finger and a door opened wide – the pointer had three phalanges as did the other fingers. Had I found where a dozen came from?  I questioned the person closest to me at the time. Did he know these things? Tired, he answered that he did not know and never looked for what I was looking for. He added that he, too, never paid too much attention to his hands. Must be a human thing, I thought. My mind, however, was not resting; a journey had started, and I was not going to abandon ship.
  I marveled at the education I received as a youngster. One of my tutors used my body to teach me order, world history, mathematics and what he called sacred geometry. He was at war with my mind and was determined to win. War, every time I saw his face, war!  Today I smiled, thinking about this man born to torment me. Always insisting numbers were the laws by which the universe worked, Mr. Jacques Malaise made my youth a nightmare, and he won the war.
  I spoke French at that time and now gave a thought to my fingers. L’index, perhaps to turn the pages and to point to a direction I could not see. Le majeur, the longer, taller finger, the word translating well especially well when addressing the Major of the armies fighting wars outside of my investigation. Then I remembered that in America we use this finger for a certain gesture. I played with l’annulaire, the one which received the annau, the ring I wear. I could not come up with much utility for this finger perhaps it was made to remind me I was married, the one with real purpose I could not forget, the little finger. L’auriculaire, the one made to stick into the ear for cleaning. This thought brought me laugher; Mr. Malaise reminded me again and again to unplug my ears. My exploration was by no means over; I could not let the dormant le pousse be ignored. My thumb – made to push on, to give the OK in arenas of Rome. My thumb was up, and I could continue with one finger dependent upon the others to use as a whole, perhaps for the greater good and used, also, for all the things waiting to be grabbed.  
  With twelve phalanges in hand, so to speak, I surmised that they are the basis for dozens, inches and feet. The examination of my hand continued and I remembered my thumb and its three phalanges; the first and second are obvious, the third bone attaches the thumb almost to the wrist. I now had a total of fifteen segments.  
  All this was nothing more extraordinary to me than a bunch of folding bones forming a particular number. Not so, my mind told me; it sounded much like the voice of Mr. Malaise. “All is in order,” he would have said, “notice the numbers, and you will find great mysteries waiting exploration.” So notice I did, explore I continued. One must smile when one finds out that the source of irritation during youth is a gift to be unwrapped decades later with care and appreciation. My dozen gave up its mystery, but my fifteen forgot to tell me how important it was, but that was temporary.
  The Middle East, particularly Mesopotamia, did not enter my awareness immediately, too busy using my hands and paying attention to digits. I needed to clear my mind and look at the various gifts received from the universe. The only way to get there was to find out more. 
  With an interest in all things Eastern, the fifteen brought to mind that a Hindu month had fifteen days and that each month corresponded to a phase of the moon. Their calendar year contained 360 days – no month with extra days. I remember the lesson well, I was nine at the time, and I decided to watch the moon every night for however long it would take; an eternity it appeared to have been. I had to prove my tutor wrong, he was talking nonsense, I was sure of it. It was worth it to me at that point in time but, alas, it did not happen. The moon changed its face as prescribed by the number fifteen. I did not know then that my Julian calendar followed the travels of the sun and gave me Easter and leap years. 
  To confuse me further, in the Islamic world they keep prayer order by counting the fifteen knuckles on each hand, the thumb having three knuckles as suggested above. To that is added the tip of the little, ring and middle finger of the right hand, giving them the magic number of thirty three.  An easy task once they learned to recite the ninety-nine attributes of Allah. 
  Thinking of such things brought me to explore the messengers of the cosmos for the sky was clear, no night lights, and stars twinkled.  What a wondrous sight! Two hands made my calculation easy, I had twenty-eight obvious knuckles, and, being a woman, I knew my natural menstruating functions were on a twenty-eight day cycle. How curious, I thought, remembering the moon and its voyages took twenty-eight days. I knew the sun’s division of time had a twenty-eight year circle. What was all this about?
  Then the cosmos came crashing down, the geometry, the numbers, and order connecting the cosmos made me dizzy. I closed my eyes, and the next memory rushed in: I wanted to learn the piano. I had great ambitions, no time for tenacity and had never heard the word patience. One morning a piano arrived, a teacher followed. In my mind I was to become the next Chopin or Herby Hancock, an American I had heard a thousand times. Teaching me do re mi was to be his syllabus, instead he showed me that there was a relation between the eighty-eight keys, and three and four and seven were part of this universal equation I still did not understand. He told me I would find out that the octaves of scaling related to the octaves of human hearing. But all I wanted was to learn to play like the American jazz man, and I was not interested in octaves. 
  It became evident to my family that piano lessons were not going to help me with my imaginary jazz career. The piano soon made room for another piece of furniture my mother made better use of. She played the violin and understood numbers and octaves. Me, I developed a simple need to hear music and understood that the playing needed to go to those who appreciated what I could not grasp.
  The fascination about relations between body parts, the cosmos, and a bunch of miners in Chile kept my mind occupied. I had witnessed a rescue that in turn triggered memories of unspecified materials learned or heard about years before. I realized that numbers were an integral part of the physical me and, perhaps, the spiritual me was to discover these things at another time. 
  Evidence that numbers were all around me and knowing I had never paid attention to them, I began counting bits and pieces of me and everything immediately within my reach. Made of the stuff of divine origin, proportions in man and the cosmos told me I was onto something, and so were the people that built pyramids and so on.
  The news about the miners came and went, but my hands and what I found remained to tell me there is and was an order that comes with numbers and one does not need to be a mathematician to find them fascinating, especially when one finds them in the very construction of the body. 
  Each number I examined seemed to have come from or with something prearranged, and one could use pages to explore them. Many books have been written about the value of numbers, and while we often think of them in the organization of dollars and cents, they are there surveying our every move.
  I was not looking into the various calendars of the ancient world when I thought again about the trapped miners, in the ‘underworld’ of Chile. Thirty-three miners, three side by side, was easier to deal with than to count my digits and knuckles. Was it humor or coincidence when I learned that the universe orchestrated something to keep me occupied?  Man is born with thirty-three vertebras. 
  While Plato said that geometry was the knowledge of the eternally existent, Marcel Proust a novelist felt that the real voyage of discovery consisted not in seeking new lands but seeing with new eyes. I had perhaps opened both my eyes. 
  Never satisfied, I opened my arms to the heavens, spread my legs apart and had a conversation with Leonardo Da Vinci’s Vitruvius man. I was a circle, I was a square. I could make angles and, to top it all, the golden proportion of my navel broke my body in half.  Proportionately the same condition happened as my chin to my brows divided my face.  I had to adhere to these proportions when I drew my first nude. I already knew that from the tip of my fingers to my elbow, I would find the golden mean proportion at my wrist. Phi they called it. From my shoulder to my brows, from my nose to the top of my head, repeated was this interesting ratio. My hand replicated this progression, my findings went on, and I realized I was all about numbers and their attributes.
  Did we have four seasons by accident, was I sitting on a chair with four legs, and is the table holding my computer a square?  Do we humans fit in a circle but understand our world only when it is squared off. 
  Numbers are still lingering like dust particles in my mind. As the Chilean miners rescue effort materialized, I heard that seven men were to go down. I could not help but think of Genesis and the Sabah, that seventh day. I allowed my eyes to visit the sky, and I saw the seven sisters, the constellation named the Pleiades. I know science and mathematics find many roots in Greece but my mind took another direction. I examined some Sanskrit text and found the seven chakras, the first one being at the tail, the root, the portal, the Kundalini, the Chilean mine, the underground. How interesting that the chakras came with the colors of a rainbow: red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, violet – seven colors. What was going on when my mind was counting or travelling from the hanging gardens known as the seventh wonder of the world to the seven colors of a rainbow?
  Seven men went underground, and with the help of many more above, they helped with one of the most heroic, non-violent rescues I had ever witnessed. Pulled from a symbolic birthing canal, thirty-three men with thirty-three vertebras experienced a rebirth as the phoenix rose, and one area of their body after the other departed from the mine. From the root, the sacral followed, the solar plexus, the heart, the throat, the third eye area and finally the crown had left the underground.
  The men from Chile provided me a golden mean to peruse divine order or coincidence.  It is now clear to me that whether we know it or not, we are a juxtaposition of numbers.  These numbers can also be used to advance civilization. 
It appears, among the builders of the United States, Masonic Masons knew something about numbers. In Washington D.C. at the Freemasonry House of the Temple,  there are 33 outer columns which are 33 feet high. 

Wednesday, February 27, 2013

A Photograph, A Moment, A Reflection


A Photograph, a Moment a Reflection

To glorify life with good intentions a pilgrimage began,  a baby girl was born.
It was a warm day when this happening took place. The sun and the moon were more than simple spots of illumination in the sky; they too were on a pilgrimage.

Granted a vintage point from a perspective distant and different, I was honoring Grandmother Moon and Grandfather Sun.  My journey was one of spirit to a place far and near that I could not see or understand.

The old lady told me, “The planets, they are sacred, and the new one that has entered the periphery of your limited vision needs to be honored.  She belongs to the stars and as the stars travel her path will be transformed and fully actualized.  She belongs to what you cannot see."  I did not understand this old woman of a different world.

From my knothole I peeked as often as the planets passed my way. I could not see this child born of the stars.  My vision edged from an artificially created border.  The child of the stars walked the edge of an ocean I could not see.

The salt in my tears colored an horizon only she could transform. 

Invisible a long while, transformation made the face visible to me.  The appearance
of a photo, elegant, joyful with a showing of self-confidence suddenly changed my point of view.  

A strand of pearls around her neck, the girl named Sedona walked on the edge of her new life. 

I paused a moment, the circle I once drew in the sand of time was reaching its end. 

Tuesday, October 9, 2012

The World Needs Old Ladies

When the title of this book was given to me by Dr. McGarey, I paused

"Why" I asked.

"Because, They are the Tree of Life"

Over nine months went by, a tremendous amount of time working, typing, editing, more conversations, and more typing–– and now the book is nearly ready for publication by Inkwell Productions.

This journey took me on a sort of self-realization.

The work is biographical, it is literary, it takes the reader around a world not often visited.  Dr. Gladys will make you laugh, you will cry at times because it is the way life is.  I talk about the life of Dr. Gladys T. McGarey, M.D., M.D. (H).  Dr. Gladys as she is affectionately called gave me the material to sift through, decipher, and grow.  To do this, she sent me on a journey, to research facilities, universities and other places.  I came out with the understanding what the medical practice of a humanitarian took  over sixty years to develop.  Her background filled with color, adventure, laughter and sorrow brought new thoughts to a world where innovations and new ideas in matters of living medicine or patient and doctor relationship were not always well accepted.

During this seeding time, I stumbled upon some great information.

Dr. Gladys, now over ninety years old was born in India.  Her age and her place of birth alone makes this 'old lady' rather special.  She studied medicine when women were suppose to be barefoot and pregnant.   She was young when she was exposed to the principles of mind, body, spirit. As a doctor of medicine,  she began to see the things wrong with our system of delivering healthcare.

She is one that is able to see a problem, face it without fear, go around bounders or even climb over them when she has to.  She operated from points of balance, patience and tenacity.  One must not confuse her gentleness with the inability to be firm.

Reading  The World Needs Old Ladies –– They are the Tree of Life will introduce the reader to two distinct voices each delivering the wisdom of the ages. At the end of the book Dr. Gladys brings in some remedies she used for the decades when she was a practicing medical doctor.

During the penning, insights in areas of responsibility for the necessary changes in areas of healthcare delivery became clear to me.  Dr. Gladys helped people get well.  The medical model however, treats diseases, not people affected with a disease.  There are huge differences between the two.

She told me, "People that are sick may have a disease, they not the disease.  Diseases are not people.  To have successes in wellness we must treat the person with the malady."

My mind paused again –– I had to look deep into myself.  When I am sick, I continue to be me first.  Whatever ailment I am the host of, is a condition that I have acquired.  I am not the disease.

Though I am the co-author of The World Needs Old Ladies I express here what I know to be true.  Every person reading this book will benefit from its content.

Wednesday, November 30, 2011

A Rendezvous at the corner of RUSHING and CONTROL delivered me to a meeting with CHOICE

It was not too long ago when my second book was ready to be published. It had gone through various edits by professionals, it had been read and reread by many. I wanted it ready for sale on a certain day, at a certain time. All was in place and ready to go. After all I had everything under CONTROL.

Words I wrote caused me satisfaction and contentment. All was in order! The time had come to find the right formatter. Soon the destiny of The Canvas – A Secret from the Holocaust invited me to the next gate.

All the CONTROLs were checked off and a proof arrived. As the author I had one last task; approve this proof.

There were holidays around the corner, a show to attend, a talk, a cause, life and other good reasons were provided to my mind. I did not read the proof because I knew it was perfect. I had paid editors, formatter and they were all professionals. There was nothing to read since I knew the content of the book.I had written every word, felt every emotion. All was in CONTROL.  I did not read the proof. 

The first edition was printed and most books were sold.

The proverbial green light went on since CONTROL had approved the printed edition. My relationship with RUSHING gained strength.  All was glorious.

Only a dear and good friend makes a call and says, “this powerful book offers a great story all women should read it. However, it cannot be offered in its present condition. It has too many mistakes.”       She had just finished reading the proof.

RUSHING laughed, “You thought you could CONTROL time!” I went to the manuscript, the original and the edited one. RUSHING laughed again, soon enough I discovered I had given the unedited manuscript to be processed, the one that made its way to the publishing world.

 Now with plenty of mud in face and hands I must walk to the process and rectify a grave mistake.

 RUSHING is satisfied today because the lesson was learned. CONTROL is also pleased because it offered a lesson now understood.

The new doorway now visible forced me to read: CHOICE. I paused ––– I hoped my intelligent readers would forgive my mistake. I did not know most of them ––– Better yet, I hoped they would not see the mistakes. Would I disregard and ignore them, could I also ignore and my prospective editors or agents? Would anyone reading the book understand about my friends RUSHING and CONTROL?

I am happy to report; I was able to make the correct CHOICE. I opened the door.
   
The Canvas – A secret from the Holocaust will be published once more. The new edition will bear the same title but will be without the numerous mistakes. One may find additional mistakes but they will be the ones I am not aware of. This book is a story of love's many levels, integrity of word given, a story of character. The story explores the many choices people made during and after the Holocaust. 

No reason is greater than to honor those who lived to tell me their stories and those unable to do so. It is for them I correct mistakes I made.

This is a great time to offer thanks to the teachers I call: RUSHING, CONTROL and CHOICE.

Eveline Horelle Dailey

Saturday, November 26, 2011

WHAT IS ONE? It started with ONE and something I could not understand followed: I wrote a sort of equation representing ONE moment in a twenty-four hour period during the month of November. The moment was the 11th day of the year 2011. To make my new cerebral adventure more interesting, the moment read 11:11 AM or PM. 11-11-11 - 11:11. Soon enough, I became surrounded with words like lucidity, coherence, rationality, consistency even logic, law and reliability joined in. I made attempts to know their reason for entering my mind, and I could only find chaos. I was ONE in an imaginary circle. While geometry may be the quest for reality, Pythagoras, the Greek philosopher, said: “Number is within all things!” Pythagoras wrote number and did not use the plural in his sentence. He must have had a good reason! With this in mind, I decided to explore my hypothetical equation. Soon a parade of ONES offered my mind no pathway to an exit. What at first, I deemed to have been pandemonium, demanded examination because something promising was happening. It was fluid and I could not hold on to it. Had I stumbled upon a mystery not yet clarified? Plato said, “You cannot conceive of the many without the ONE. The wholly ONE, a principle able to put the universe in a single, complex form.” Why did I not understand what Plato alleged? How could a single form be complex? Someone told me if I added the last two digits of my birth year and the number associated to my age, I would also create a series of ‘1s’. I tried! Lo and behold the addition proved to be a trio of ONES (1-1-1). Knowing that my time was limited, I decided to concentrate on the meaning of all the ONES (1-1-1) in front of me. It would take another one hundred years before I could review my finding. What was the significance in our lives today? 11 – 11 – 11 11:11 a complex set of ONES… A scholar I asked, thought a moment and said my idea was not consistent with anything, not coherent, not rational. In that case, what was it with ONE had I been cursed to explore? Could it be I was to explore the force between sets of ONES? The ONE that I am stands alone, that is a ‘1’. I dance with my partner, two ones (1 - 1) merging as ONE. Dancing in rhythmic, united movement creates a flow between two ONES. When bodies merge as ONE (1) for example in lovemaking, the involvement could also be described as excellent dancing. Could it be then, when ONE (1) merges with another ONE (1) there is surge? A surge of what Lucidity asked me? Though not prepared to answer, something else appeared in a not too distant horizon. I could perceive, while in the business of merging, that which flows between two ONEs reminds me of yet another word, ENERGY. It was pure science, the stuff traveling between the two ONEs was energy. This force, positively and negatively charged, creating from light to floods was, perhaps, what I was searching for? Was I pursuing the understanding of matter, physic or chemistry? I understand it takes a certain movement to CREATE. I was told ONE ( 1 ) was the number for CREATION, or was it the number of the ‘CREATOR’ energy? No one gave me the answer with any certainty! I felt creation or creator seemed consistent with my line of thinking. I discovered not long ago, when I synchronize my telephone and my computer all is well because the value traveling between the two ONES is energy under the guise of things digital. A binary language, a series of 1s and 0s in a coherent conversation about what I did not understand. I was approaching something consistent, therefore rational. I venture then to say when I put the power or energy of two ‘1s’ side-by-side something is enhanced. The power I call the Infinite becomes the singular and elusive force I cannot touch. This concept, moving in my direction, demanded that I become flexible in order to adjust something I did not understand. Something as complex as Plato suggested! A conclusion I called ONE, the Infinite number. Two ‘1s’ put side-by-side containing within each the subtle mystery to enhance the creative power of the Infinite. For the purpose of my exploration, I will stick to the examination of the month of November. ONE ONE (11) a symbol made by the magic of the left brain and its ability to count, and the doubling of the prime number and its infinite capabilities. The first force, the prime mover, the creator of multiplicity, came to mind and once more I knew I was touching the fruits of the divine. Out of my ruminations came the realization, it was not November that was in need of exploration, it is the number ONE (1). I had not yet become aware of the numerous ONEs in front of me and wondered how often did I not see what is in front of me, but that would be for a different time or a different essay. Was I questioning the possibility that the Infinite and its multiplicity was an expression able to resonate in today’s world? If my exploration was correct, it felt that all had been synchronized before I knew to count my birth year and the numbers of years I have walked on the planet. In the end, does not Alpha and Omega meet? Do we not learn something by amplifying failures and successes? We resonate with both the negatives and the positives of life. It would appear that Energy does not recognize the differences. It remains Energy! We, of the human race, apparently apply our own Energy when we negotiate with the positives and negatives to facilitate what we create. Again, the question may be something fundamental? Does Energy know the difference between positive and negative? Right and wrong, I also ask? Could the same law apply to humans? I propose, if we assemble many ONES, (1s) the interaction to follow may add strength and clarity to minds and hearts. Just perhaps, we could enhance the strength of each ONE. This interaction could have great meaning in matters of today’s world. There could be some rational, lucid, coherent, lawful and reliable moments in a world filled with turbulence. What is ONE without another ONE?

Monday, October 31, 2011

Painting The Canvas

This is not the place to talk about the art of painting on a canvas. The canvas in question was painted with my mind. With great accuracy my fingers followed what was generated by my soul. I distorted the truth and made it mine. I replaced what was with could be. My intention is to tell how The Canvas - A Secret from the Holocaust came about. Like most authors a seed growing between my ears needed room to expend. After a while I remembered stories I heard long long ago. "Why you/" a voice screamed from the balcony, She was sitting on a chair covered with velvet almost matching her shirt. Are you Jewish? Though I said no, I had to verify with family members to know if there was a secret.

Thursday, January 6, 2011

The flame

My writing is inspired by sources all around me. This month a song I heard while listening to "playing for change" inspired the essay that will follow. The triggers for my imagination to unfold comes from the behavior of people, music I hear, the natural world around me. They are forces I take seriously because they are my muse. The song I heard had a line about the ability to blow out the candle.... and my mind took the bate and I wrote something for those involved with Alcoholic Anonymous. Why post such an essay if I do not belong to this particular club I will never know. As a writer, it is the behavior on mankind that feeds my pen.
So I wrote a short essay:

The Flame

The candle stood alone and I blew the flame out, I was satisfied.
I will have one beer and no more, I will watch the charred wick. I can do this.
Maybe one more beer, I know it is okay.
The house next door, west of me is, is on fire.
I cannot blow the flames out, that will feed the fire.
My son is safe, he is at the house to the east, my son is safe.
My candle does not burn, I will have one more beer.
I will watch the blacken wick. I know my son is safe at the house to the east or was it the west.

The flames are being nourished by something I cannot see, better have one more beer.
The flames are mesmerizing, I will have one more beer.
What time is it? Where do all the empty bottles come from? I lost track.
Where is my son? What happened?

The ambulance came, his face was charred like the wick on my candle.
My son is dead, his flame burns no more.