My vote and Linville Falls Chapter 3 and Friday tunes

 A note to VOTE!

I did early voting last Tuesday. The line outside the early voting site at our library was spaced well, and moved people right along. There were plexi screens as we talked with the people who had laptops to take our names and then print the appropriate ballots. Yes paper. There were 10 standing booths and 2 sitting ones. And a poll worker went around after each booth was used and sprayed disinfectant to clean it. We put our marked ballots into a big automatic machine, and didn't receive a sticker this year, because the poll worker said it was a hands off voting. Thanks to all the poll workers that are coping with pandemic needs! I have high hopes that Biden-Harris will take North Carolina's electoral votes this time!

Governor Cooper just extended our Stage 3 COVID status due to the recent increase in cases in North Carolina.

Our selfie of the day included a bit of horsing around on the part of Helen...giving me rabbit ears no less. When I shared it to Facebook, lots of people enjoyed our shenanigans. I took off my mask, but Helen thought hers too pretty to remove for a photo. There were only a few people in the crowd not wearing masks, thank goodness.

The viewing area was a bit smaller than 2 years ago...a fence has been put up to keep folks from going closer to the falls for a photo. But one guy climbed over it to get his photos.

In case you're tired of looking at waterfalls...here's a bit of something different!

take a break and listen to 5 minutes of classical guitar music...AnnaVidovic plays Recuerdos de la Alhambra by Francisco Tarrega

This is what "retired Helen" looks like...wind in her hair, and she closes her eyes when a camera is pointed in her direction! There was also a great spray of mountain water as it splashed over the rocks. Fortunately we could smell it through our masks! So that tells me that particles of exhaled moisture from coughs and sneezes might also pass through our masks. Get that 6 foot distance!

I'm so glad we took this trip on Thursday, while the sun was shining and there were still a few leaves in color on the trees. Sorry if I've posted some of these photos more than once...I tried to cull out ones that were of the same view...not very effectively I'm afraid.

Today's quote:

Every time we talk to someone, there comes back to us a map
 of expectation as to how we should respond...

We share a confusion:
we are often given direction.

We share a pain;
we are often given instruction.

We share a desire;
we are often given a plan.

The power of these unspoken maps should not be underestimated.
For the endless gravities of expectation we move in and out of
govern most of our thinking and summons most of our energy
in denying them or complying with them.

In actuality, underneath all the plans, pressures, and expectations,
underneath all the subtle guidance and nudging, the next step
is truly unknown...

Thus, our spiritual charge is to maintain the wonder of the
singular explorer that each of us is...

The freshest step has always come when we are brave
enough to land at the end of what little we know,
breathing in new air, in reaction to no one, in wonder at
what is...

Mark Nepo

From: The Book of Awakening

Depression as an everyday state and how to get out of it

With Covid-19, the pandemic (hopefully the only one) of our lives...many of us feel depressed. And it kind of sneaks up on us, especiallly those of us who are natural intraverts who said, "At last, I can hang out alone and enjoy it." Then after a few months, we don't want to get out of bed, or eat, or can't sleep...boom! We've become depressed!

Thanks to Elephant Journal HERE 

Five Ways out of Depression (entire article is posted below in case you don't want  to click to the link)

I have experience with everyday depression. So do you. We all do. It’s human.

(I’m not talking about clinical depression, here. That may require clinical solutions. This is about the Buddhist teachings on how to work with everyday depression).

It’s been a part of the human condition for all time—which is good, because folks like the Buddha and Jesus and every great realized human being ever has gone through it, and found her or his way out of it.

5 Obvious, Quick, Simple, Easy Ways out of Depression (That we Fail to Think of When We’re Depressed).

1. Anything electronic—unplug it. Video games, instagram, surfing the web—anything too focus-oriented, repetitive, and mildly pleasurable keeps us anchored to that mindless churning beneath the waves.

2. Get outside. Light, fresh air—is the hope, the outlet, the gap, the present-moment succor, and pleasure that comes with tearing open our cocoon.

3. Touch in with a living sentient being’s heart. See someone. Hug a dog. Talk with community—what’s getting us down now, told as a story, will get us out of what’s getting us down, now. And it usually makes for a good story, too, if only because it’s real.

Yes you can be close during Covid...wear a mask and be outdoors!

4. Music. Dance. Blues. Hard rock. Depends on your mood. Something we have to dance a little to. Move.

5. Most importantly: we can avoid the things we think will give us pleasure but know, from experience, will not—sex that isn’t based on love, porn, picking zits, video games, overeating food we’re not hungry for, ice cream, more ice cream, binge-watching too much TV, whatever it is—go the other direction and…

Breathe.

Remember to breathe. It’s that simple. It’s that simple, but it’s not easy to remember to do so when we least want to remember to do so.

It takes practice. Meditation practice. Life practice.

Author: Waylon Lewis

And my own saying for today...which reminds me that it took a heart attack to get to exercising regularly, and eating plant-based diet with low fat foods, and meditating daily, and connecting with friends and family!

"Do what you did, and you'll get what you got."

Day trip to Linville Falls, Chapter 2

 

It was nice that many people were masked. This is the rocky area where we could view the upper falls to the left, and the chute of the river going to the lower falls to the right. And here are some photos I posted several years ago visiting the same spot. (More here too.)

There are rock walls around the viewing area on 2 sides. And fences on the other side open to the water. Here's the beginning of the chute.

The chute going down to soon make a 90 degree turn.

A few golden leaves above the rocks and water.

Coming down the last stone stairs to the viewing area...one way traffic.

In the shady area to right, the water disappears around the 90 degree bend.

Upper falls as we went down hill.

At top of steps where I had taken the last photo above.

We waited our turn to get to the fence to see the upper falls closer, and take our selfie of the day! More tomorrow!

Today's quote:

"Seek wisdom, not knowledge. Knowledge is of the past, Wisdom is of the future." ~Lumbee Native American

The day-trip begins

 

"We'll get there early...at 11:15...and they won't be crowded." WRONG. Tables were close together and had 4 people at each one (mostly) and there was only ONE poor waitress taking care of everyone. 

Helen and I kept our masks on...finally got to give the one waitress our take-out order of vegetables...and then had 30 more minutes to wait. It was because that one waitress was busy...and then we had the nerve to ask for plastic forks to go with our lunches...so the gal had to walk all the way back to the back to get them.

I don't think this was a working phone, because when one rang, another woman came along looking for the cell phone. Waitress said she didn't know where she put it. The other woman took our money and we left...and more people were coming in the door.

They had some nice seasonal decorations too.

Also, see the little green sign hanging from the ceiling? It tells where the border of one of the 3 counties goes...yes, the restaurant sits on that junction, and has a sign for each county.  I posted about this restaurant several years ago on another day-trip HERE.

We took our lunches, found a spot in the crowded parking lot at Linville Falls, and pulled our 2 folding chairs out of the trunk of the car. As we were heading up to a sunny spot, the woman who was sitting at the picnic table helped us and invited us to sit at the table...so we happily did while she waited for who she was meeting. Her 2 children were playing with leaves and bugs nearby.

There were thousands of people going to see the falls (over the whole day I imagine that many, maybe we saw only 50.) We hadn't been for 2 years...and there certainly hadn't been this many people before. On a Thursday no less!

Going down hill, we stopped frequently as Helen marveled at mossy logs...and people passed us by.

There were beautiful trees and leaves overhead.

And roots on rocks frequently. That's Helen further down the path.

Our first view of the falls. Again, stopping meant people would pass behind me on their way down.

There were places where only one person could go at a time. So the pedestrian traffic blocked up going one way or the other.

More tomorrow on the falls!

Today's Quote:

When external factors shift, we have an opportunity to rediscover our core, the only truly safe place to call home.

Daily Om

As fall closes

 

What's going on in my neighborhood?

I put many plants out to catch the recent rains...

The neighbor on far left has only a hanging fern, and a nice welcome fall banner.

At the end of the building another neighbor has a pumpkin displayed

My other next door neighbor has some flowers still blooming on her railing. We may share a wall, but it's a concrete fire wall, so we never hear each other thumping around.

My balcony is in the center and still had it's healthy Kalanchoes out when I walked around the building last week. It was warm enough a downstairs neighbor, and myself had our bedroom windows open. I used to cough so much at night, I wouldn't open my bedroom window and bother my 3 neighbors who sleep so close to me. But these days my cough has become much more infrequent, so if it's in the 60s at night, the window is cracked usually. I know TMI~~!

The Bradford Pear has lost a lot of its leaves...as have the maples outside my windows. So I can wake up and see the mountain ridge again...a true pleasure.

P.S. I need to mention that the management has sent out a letter saying we are not to put any decorative items off our porches...and can only keep our porches with just porch furniture. So I dare say the person with decorations stuck in the ground, and the one with planters at the end of the banisters may have removed them. It's a sticky wicket, as they say, because apparently the woman who lived in my apartment before me had little figurines all over the grass in front of her porch...which of course meant the grass couldn't be cut. Thus rules are made. And we're threatened with eviction if we break them. Ugh.

Today's quote:

It’s like a schoolhouse
of little words,
thousands of words.
First you figure out what each one means by itself,
the jingle, the periwinkle, the scallop
full of moonlight.
Then you begin, slowly, to read the whole story. 

Mary Oliver

NuStep at the rehab center

Here are my pink laced sneakers pushing and pulling on the recumbant stepper machine at Pumonary Rehab. I'm working it up to 20 minutes each time I come in three times a week.

I'm showing how it looked when I started. I had already done 20 minutes on a tread mill, showing a bit over .7 of a mile. And following this routine, I joined others in my "class" to do weight training using thera-bands. Whew. And all this work is paying off.

----------------------

From my other blog, Three Family Trees...I posted this last week.

I finished the Ornish Cardiac Rehab (9 weeks) on Sept. 24, 2020. While the pandemic continues, we all wore masks except to eat the nice vegetarian lunches. I increased my abilities to walk and climb hills, and lost some weight. But the Ornish program talks about not just recovering from heart disease, but reversing it.

So I learned not only to eat vegetarian and low fat dishes, but to prepare them, because my usual places to get food out weren't making these kinds of things. And I had to keep track of everything I ate. And I also took active part in a group counseling session, and a meditation/stress reduction session twice a week. I also did these at home on the days I didn't go to the rehab program.

My cholesterol number was halved. And I started losing weight. Not to mention, I don't get out of breath just doing simple tasks any more. 

And just finishing that program, I turned a corner and addressed my chronic lung difficulties. So now I'm in pulmonary rehab. It's more focused on endurance. We started with a test to see how far we could walk in 6 minutes. I dare say when I complete the program I'll have that test again. We also do some weight training, as well as recumbent stepping. I am up to 20 minutes on each of the walk and recumbents. So my walk is now over a half mile (0.7 last Friday.)

I have eaten a few things not on the Ornish diet. But each time I make sure to go back onto it strictly the next day. I'll be meeting my cohort friends this Tuesday to see how everyone has been doing in the 2 1/2 weeks since I last saw them.

And I'll finish the 8 weeks of pulmonary rehab in a few more weeks. Before then, I'll see my pulmonologist and have a breathing test this week also. So I hope the fact that my coughing has greatly reduced will show up as better health in my lungs. Fingers crossed.

Anyway, as I write this I'm doing a breathing treatment with a nebulizer. I haven't changed my treatments, nor did I stop any of the cardiac medications that I was put on following my May heart attack with a stent inserted on my heart. My cardiologist did see me already, and says I've increased my heart volume from 30% to 50%, which is low normal. (A heart doesn't pump out all the blood that's in it at one time. 60% is normal.)

Anyway, I've decided to spend some time focused on my ancestry again. So I'll start soon, and be submitting some new compilations here again. I'll start with my Rogers/Swasey ancestors of my father, George Rogers Jr.

-------------------------

Update on Wed. Oct. 14, 2020

The pulmonologist said my breathing test was better than a year ago.

I asked if I could stop taking some of the meds I'd been on, namely the one that made me shaky and not even able to write. He said yes, skip the Albuterol in the nebulizer, but keep it around in case I need it. And I could use the saline solution in the nebulizer just once a day, preferably in the morning.

I haven't been coughing every time I change positions, especially at night...so I feel much better about having been doing the exercises now since the last day of July. And I'm thinking of somehow continuing them through the winter. 

And yesterday Oct. 13th, 6 of the Ornish graduates in my cohort #35 met in a park with our masks on and talked about how we're doing, and some of our concerns. On the top was the possibility that the hospital will no longer offer the Ornish program of rehabilitation. We don't know for sure the outcome of the meeting last Friday. So we all are holding our breaths on that thought. 

I have been looking through many vegetarian cookbooks lately. What a fun thing to do. I want to eat everything, and only a few will actually make it to my table.

 

The tree at the bank

Pretty sure this is a Bradford Pear...but it could be a Maple of some variety. And while I'm off leaf peeping (while masked)...here's another blogger who posts the names of many of the trees, with their foliage in full color. Good to know. forestandfield.blogspot.com

Today's quote:

Another year gone, leaving everywhere
its rich spiced residues: vines, leaves,

the uneaten fruits crumbling damply
in the shadows, unmattering back

from the particular island
of this summer, this NOW, that now is nowhere

except underfoot, moldering
in that black subterranean castle

of unobservable mysteries - roots and sealed seeds
and the wanderings of water. This

I try to remember when time's measure
painfully chafes, for instance when autumn

flares out at the last, boisterous and like us longing
to stay - how everything lives, shifting

from one bright vision to another, forever
in these momentary pastures.

Mary Oliver

I'm posting some art from the Black Mountain Center for the Arts 

Two wet days

I'm posting some art from the Black Mountain Center for the Arts over at my blog Alchemy of Clay.

 

You can see where much of the colorful leaves have ended up. Two days of rain last weekend, so I did very little outside.

The plants on the balcony have been growing bigger all summer. Now I need to think where they'll live during the winter.

I wish I hadn't divided the violets, because these are all I really want to care for, rather than the other 4 children of theirs!

Today's quote:

"Whenever I touch a flower, I touch the sun and yet I don't get burned. When I touch the flower, I touch a cloud without flying to the sky. When I touch the flower, I touch my consciousness, your consciousness, and the great planet Earth at the same time.

The miracle is possible because of insight into the nature of interbeing. If you really touch one flower deeply, you touch the whole cosmos. The cosmos is neither one nor many. When you touch one, you touch many, and when you touch many, you touch one.."

~Thich Nhat Hanh 
Cultivating the Mind of Love