.My brother Ken,  four years younger than me,  has  a more accurate long-term memory of the events of our youth than I have.  Whereas I recall the emotional effects of the events on me in vivid detail, he has the greater acuity for the events themselves.  I knew enough  to never argue with him because he was almost always right.
       For example, my father's brother, Edgie, a corporal in the South Saskatchewan regiment,  I knew was captured in the Dieppe raid during the second world war and spent the next almost three and a half years as a prisoner of war in Stalag 8 B in Germany.  Ken's son and I were speaking of this recently and I told him that while in prison Edgie had wagered with a fellow prisoner  that he could swallow a dead mouse they had for a dollar..  Ken interrupted me to say I was wrong and that he had bet that he could  bite the mouse in half for a dollar. He apparently did! Now neither Ken nor I have talked about this, to my knowledge, for  60 years, but  his superior acuity does not take away from the horror I felt in learning of the event and whether biting or swallowing, is beside the point. The point is the raw and outlandish behavior of the state of young men as prisoners of war and my feeling of revulsion.  So far this story has nothing elevated to teach or learn.
        But I have been reading Roger Lundin's book, Emily Dickinson and the Art of Belief.  He says, "----for her  (Emily) memory meant the recollection of intense experiences or encounters, rather than the rituals of general commemoration."   In addition he says, "  It usually involved a revival of sensory impress. She was only intrigued by the memory of what went on within the dwelling of her conscious life."  I think that summarizes the difference between Ken and me,  memory and acuity.
     Ken was a journalist and a school teacher.  He saw and remembered the details of what went on, vividly and accurately. My recollection of the same set of  facts that we would have heard so very long ago is completely colored by my  recall of the feelings. The acuity is swept away by the feelings which are the  more powerful in me and others.
       In a world today of law ,testimony, false memory syndrome, accusation, redemption, recall, regrets, hurt, loss, acuity, recompense,  damnation and justice , requires we stick with the reporter,   rather than the poet.
       

Some of the honey bees , overnight, on selected flowers! Sometimes a flower's anatomy provides a quality petal cradle adjacent to the bee pantry. The bees are choosy where they sleep.
    Jomanda is a ball dahlia that has smallish upturned edges  to the petals that are form-fitting for the demanding bee body and suitable for an overnight retreat. It also keeps them close to the pollen larder. They are worker bees so they don't have to go home at night to a mate if they are busy bees., but just have to bring home food in the daylight.
      If they don't bother going home, they can start early in the morning which is admirable in the eyes of the workaholic, though I found this llttle lad a bit sluggish at 6;30 that morning. I roused him but he only showed modest enthusiasm about leaving.  When he left, the cradle was empty except for a messy dropping or two.
      We had bee hives early on, but then encountered escape variants that Mother Nature harboured in tree hollows or some dry refuge. Whatever! They were welcome here and perhaps had escaped the possibly mite-vectored disease, Colony Collapse Disorder that has assailed so many of their colleagues. While we celebrate their hard work bringing home the bacon, we know that fresh air, sunshine and freedom from crowding is the healthy answer for them, and ,frankly, for all of us!  We are also less likely to succumb to Colony Collapse Disorder  if we embrace that same environment and spend more time in the flower cradle.

David Lowenthal wrote a book in 1985 called The Past is a Foreign Country. It's a wonderful book describing history , memory and reliquary amongst other things ;  plus the desire to relive or collect the past.  One of our daughters,  two of our granddaughters and the pianist and I , made apple cider , a day in time past, from some of the good Gravenstein windfalls. We made 30 quarts of juice heated 200 degrees to pasteurize.
     Our press is a 30 year old hand crank and our routine was long established. The design of the press is probably hundreds of years earlier. The apple mash makes good compost. We have a country kitchen and we press on the grass outside the kitchen door so we are neat and don't make a mess. This link to the past is lived by us in a real sense. The soft ware we call a brain, somewhere, has a face book page that records my father's farm where he grew up, and my grandfather's orchard. It is indelible and structural.  My granddaughters, as sure as the sun rises tomorrow, will one day press their own apples in their own  orchard.
       After  all that,  we went to an old folks home after church next day.  Some are blind and some have short term memory, but they respond to the old chesnuts we sang in the past that a long term memory always allows.  Old ones like  "Jesus loves me , this I know" , but  now modified for oldsters as " Jesus loves me, this I know, though my hair is white as snow." . We try to get "With it " !  They also like  " In the garden. "  I liked that song too since both my mother's and dad's funeral's had that hymn at their request.
       The old forks have intact long term memory. For them the past is not a foreign country. So do I. These linkages to the past for me are evocative of the connection  to my grandparents and my parents. I do not long for the two-holer, or the town pump, or the kerosene lamp, nor do I wish to see one any more. But I don't believe the past is a foreign country.
      
      

My mum and dad in retirement lived in a high-rise rental unit in Lotus City for a number of years. There were a large number of rental units for almost exclusively elderly people. My dad in his heyday had grown an abundant number of dahlia and gladiola and they missed the prospect of having cut flowers always available for their home. He spent half of his horticultural lifetime as well giving away flowers to all and sundry. Since I am a chip off the old block and have grown dahlia for a number of years in volume, but not glads, since deer eat those flowers and what's a glad without any bloom?
      I started taking dahlias to my parents in Lotus City once a week. My truck with dahlias was noted by residents of the high-rise and my parents asked if I could bring some to their friends. My donations were well recieived and after a while many of the other renters came for flowers, waiting in the parking lot on Wednesday when I arrived. Bringing dahlias for me was no big deal because  it saved me from deadheading in the plot.in another few days They all called me Dr. Flower.
       I'm not sure I liked the name, at the time, but I was younger and I do now. I was worried  it sounded like Dr. Dolittle or Mr. Rogers. The love of color and beauty by older people without gardens in a concrete apartment made that gift giving for me just nothing more than a continuation of my dad's generosity.
        My dad died, my mother moved to a nursing home, my old truck expired and I ended my flower toting activity.

 " Look" , I said to the pianist that morning,  " There is a flock of American Widgeons that has returned. They weren't here yesterday. " They are the first returnees of our winter ducks. What is it that is so comfortable of the familiar?  Expectations met ! The orb is turning as it ought.
       November is a black month here, but the dark , wind  and cold is familiar and we can rely on the Widgeons and the Buffleheads as part of, it so they are welcome too. The widgeons tell us it is good to be here. They say, "This is where we choose to come and you are our familiar. You can rely on the  Bufflrheads and us and the others to sooth your familiars."
          The older one becomes the more familiars one has and the more they become of value.  My kids, when they were young liked the same story over and over again.  If I changed it a little bit they objected.  "That's not right dad Tell it the way that you are supposed to, " they said .  They were young  so had developed fewer familiars and what they had was precious to them.  Breaking new ground, on the other hand,  is crucial for the young, creating new familiars for themselves, though they may not know it at the time
          Years ago I had a white cable-knit sweater that I really loved.  I wore it a lot , and particularly on my boat with my captain's hat and a scarf: it became a joie de vivre!  It was my statement. As it was in frequent use it became frayed at the wrists and the waist became baggy. It looked a bit like a tent and at times the belly button showed. The elbow yarn thinned and there was a little stain in the front, and after multiple washings the pianist chucked in the bin to discard. I retrieved it and continued to wear it , averse comments notwithstanding.  It was a familiar and I  still felt a certain jauntiness  it imparted despite the disagreeable aspect. After all I was the author of its decrepitude and owed it protection.  My efforts to prolong the life of my cable=knit led to naught when the pianist had it to repeatedly wash and finaly trashing it and having it repeatedly retrieved. One day she washed the  green algae off the greenhouse floor with my treasure. It was a dirty grey green and irretrievable.
        It was like the day when my aunt Mildred took my blanket away when I was three. She said, " You don't need your blanket any more Jim, now that you are three." Another familiar bit the dust. Both Mildred and the pianist were right. I needed to break new ground.
         

Received clusters of designated symbols we call words can be either seen or heard. The Optic nerve ( 2nd cranial nerve ) ,will mediate the seen word to the occipital cortex.  The heard word will be mediated by the auditory branch of the 8th cranial nerve to the cortical temporal lobe. These different entry points and transfers to the different imprinting areas of the brain lead to different perception despite the excellence of the subsequent processing and integrative action of the brain.
       The symbols you learned to see do not reflect exactly the symbols you learned to hear before and after you learned to read. Since these symbols have become the stuff of communication, then oral and written language is the stuff of life. Many people have developed listening skills that commit much of what they hear to memory:  the oral', an older and more primitive tradition. Others,  have highly refined visual skills and are visual learners, so reading and writing  (seeing ) leads to better retention.
       When we read to others we transport the visual symbols to the listeners ear. It will go from our imprinted symbols in our occipital cortex , to the spoken clusters ,to the listeners ear and their temporal lobe. The symbols will be filtered and compounded for the listener by integration neurons both of passion and association intellect. The intellectual read word becomes the affective heard word.
         Whether oral tradition could ever translate in full measure to the written tradition ;  whether the passion and richness of masterly writing is the same as the spoken word by a great actor ; all is a mystery to me. And what of the blind or deaf? Doea sign language penetrate to the core like the sounds in translation, made by orators? Does Braille duplicate the passion of great written poetry. If they do not,  how can we know this without a viable basis for knowing? Are the blind or deaf limited largely to content and not privileged to the full measure of presentation providing a precious extenson beyond content?
         One thing we do know now, is the capacity of the brain and the no longer available senses to develop new pathways. Perhaps a new pathway to passion. Brain remapping towards communication and its wholeness could be the stuff of life.
          Excerpt from Jim Warren  A Braided Cord

The pianist and I once had a 1990 Nissan Axxess that was 8 or 10 years old that was still in good running order, partly because it was softly used and serviced regularly. I tried to start it one time after we had been away for a while and the battery had run down because a ceiling light had been left on. When the tow truck man came and jumped the battery he told me to run it for half an hour to charge up the battery.
    I drove around Lotus Island for a while with the pianist and then took her to her bank. I was feaful about turning the ignition off when I was parked at that stage, so I sat in the car waiting for her as the car ran on idle while she did her business.
     I was musing on nothing in particular when a small, purpose-driven lady in earth clothing came to my window and said,  "You people are all the same. You pollute the earth with your gas fumes and use up a natural resource and do not have any regard for the earth and the people in it. "  She was quiet and intense, and having made a clear statement she left me hanging and crossed back over the road,
      I wondered, " Am I of the tribe of You People and who are the You People,  anyway ? "  I was never given a chance to explain that I was not  One of Them.
       As I cogitated the encounter a man emerged from the bank wearing earth clothing and came to my open window  and said, " You know your car is running . "
      " Yes ", I said, " My battery is flat and I am afraid to turn the car off yet since it is still charging and I may not get it started again if I do. "
       " That's OK then. ", he said.
        I thought, "  Thanks a lot green buddy. "
       It's not that I was being accosted and taken to task that took me aback so much, since this is Lotus Island and contains abundant Ecophiliacs. It's just that I was named ' You People', separated, categorized, held up as a lesson and packaged as an ' Other '. It's hard for all of us,  me too , not to jump to conclusions.

When a leg, or a large part of a leg, is removed for any reason,  the image of the leg remains as a phantom and you may alight from your bed after a sound sleep and attempt to stand on something that isn't there. The cortical imprint in your brain of your leg remains for some period of time despite the sensory input of something that no longer exists. This is called the phantom image.
     The larger map representing the neural areas in the brain for the lower limb are the joints, knee, ankle and the great toe.  These are the phantom images most commonly identified by the patient,  but as the brain adapts to the loss of the limb, recognition occurs and there is perception of a fore shortening of the phantom towards the stump, rather than just fading away. Before it fades away completely the foot may image on the end of the stump.
        If a history of  severe chronic and unrelenting pain has been elicited before the amputation of the limb, rather than just a phantom image,  phantom pain will also sometimes ensue. The brain we know has a self-adjusting capacity to add or delete mapped areas of itself that serve the body parts as need be and it is increasingly understood, but change is slower and less deliberate than we may wish. Despite the impatience we may have this capacity is wonderful adaptation in time. Where chronic pain has been present the cortical representation is larger and adaptation slower.
        Given this problem of pain perceived in our parts generally, there is something to learn from the phenomenon  of phantom limb. Given the mystery of pain where the physical  source no longer exists;  it could follow that, that pain in other parts  of the human vessel we call our own, might also be "remembered" when the part is removed or no  residual pathology remains.  Phantom pain in the low back or empty gall bladder bed or a legion of other painful conditions, corrected, but still slow to be deleted by the cerebral cortex.
           When they say it's all in your head, it would have a different meaning if the analogy to phantom limb is a viable theory. It just might mean that it's still on your cerebral cortical spot in it's usual place for a while  until that three pounds of grey matter remaps itself. It may be my simpleton's theory to a high powered neurophysiologist. but I am long in the tooth and have too little time left to shut up!

Scrub your hands and bottom best
And treat with gentleness the rest.
        The hype of the skin moisturizers and their pitches of skin care have prompted me to attack the whole idea for 95% of people who have healthy skin since the claims  are under the guise of entirely cosmetic. The television ads undermine the natural and promote plasticity in human beings. I am not a dermatologist, but I do have common sense and know this :  that Mother Nature is never wrong and Ockham's Razor is usually right.
         The fetish of bathing or showering once or twice a day, robbing one's epidermis by scouring off Mother Nature's lipids, wax esters, glycerides, squalene, and sialomucin, all it's natural sebum oils, and then , when one has denuded their epidermis of this protective coating, adding some cream that smells like a flower, resists vitamin D , and is manufactured from the petroleum industry is an act of violation. The natural epidermal ooze is much more complex than I have elaborated,  but one came with it in abundance when we traversed the birth canal with our lipid covering of Vernix Caseosa. It accumulated in utero and protect us. We are still protected if we allow it to remain after a modest fashion.
            It's not that one should not bathe at all ; it is just that it is badly overdone. I guess it's OK to smell like a flower some of the time, but the erotic scent of the healthy hominid  will always trump the contrived scent of everyone smelling inhuman. Even your dog will celebrate your natural scent.
             The Dermatological scientists can't agree on the specific utility of all these waxy coatings we have been provided with, but human beings should still smell like people and retain their natural oils and waxes minus the dirt and grime. The coating is there for a reason. Not knowing the whole of the role they supply doesn't count. As I said , "Mother Nature is always right, and the correct answer according to William of Ockham is usually the simplest answer."
              Soap and water and a fresh towel is the sexy answer for the natural hominid then and now. Moreover everyone is going to look like they really look like!  That will be interesting. Let's not get plastered too often. Lets not stay in the sun endlessly without our natural oils and wax esters to protect our epidermis. Let's not worry about being white or wrinkled. Let's agree that the added sort of beauty may not be even skin deep.

 Mother Nature and Human Nature are really one--- indivisible. If we see ourselves as a food source amongst any other of our useful attributes, we can embrace all of the other similar ions and atoms we are related to, plant and animal and mineral that spend much of the time eating and being eaten, digested or absorbed by one another while perched on the food chain of life or death.
     If you believe you are at the top of the food chain, know that you are living food for the mosquito, tape worm, E. coli, the commensals, any number of hosts of micro-cellular organisms, and at the end, the Yew tree and all trees, the grass, vultures , carrion beetles and other members of the so-called lower orders that enjoy you in perpetuity, along with the maggots that often enjoy the gift we finally give.
     The so- called lower order of the food chain just completes the circle of life as we eventually embrace and enter the mineral world, when that erstwhile flesh and bone rises again in new vegetation. Therefore it is hard to call any feeder a lower order since we all are part of the wheel of life.
      There is no humiliation in this matter. How can there be any humiliation when we are one with Mother Nature and Human Nature? The sin in the garden of Eden was in believing that we were different from the garden and could eat freely from the Tree of Knowledge, thinking we were different from the tree. That is;  of another substance than the tree, rather than being content to linger for our  little while in the shade of The Tree of Life.