Today marks the six month anniversary of Notes From a Life in Progress and I would like to mark the date with a selection from the better late than never department. Digging into the filing cabinet, I pull forth this post from February 17, 2002 in which I erroneously reffered to the propietor of abuddhas (one of the first blogs I discovered and, perhaps, the first to link me) as Dr. Menlo when, in fact, the paradigm busting abuddhas is merely hosted by the paradigm shattering Dr. Menlo. Tony (sorry, Tony, I don't know your last name) is the man behind the curtain at abuddhas and I hereby stand corrected.

When I have the time I will actually edit that old post and change names accordingly.

The good news: Sarah's surgery occurred as planned and without incident (fortunately we saw a recent program on the History Channel featuring anesthesia horror stories after the operation). What's more, despite some residual pain in the left leg due to the severity of nerve damage, the microdiskectomy was successful.

The bad news: Because we were living in Florida and not paying California state taxes during the arbitrary period of time which the State of California reviews for wage and tax information ( which they use to calculate disability payments), Sarah is inelligible for California State disability insurance. Because eating and living indoors are pretty high on our list of basic needs, Sarah now finds herself in a position of cutting short her convalesence by at least a week and returning to work sooner than health, love, and doctor's orders would advise. This is particularly galling in light of the fact that for sixteen or more years before our ill conceived Florida detour, Sarah worked hard, paid her taxes and never once utilized the system of support we need now.

I hope you don't mind
the good news first
and the bad last.

It is simply my inclination
to save the worst
for the last.

"Whether or not you believe in the paranormal may depend entirely on your brain chemistry. People with high levels of dopamine are more likely to find significance in coincidences, and pick out meaning and patterns where there are none."

-Paranormal beliefs linked to brain chemistry, New Scientist-

According to the sources at Dictionary.com, one of the prime definitions of paranormal is that which is "beyond scientific explanation" or "not in accordance with the laws of science". With this definition - and abnormal amounts of dopamine - in mind, I must say that I am a believer in the paranormal. I must be so whether or not I believe in Faeries or telepathy simply by virtue of the fact that I do not believe in the infallability of science nor even in the possibility that science is capable of telling us everything about the universe in which we dwell. Science is without doubt a useful tool in the measuring of man and the cosmos and in the improvement of life quality, but in the way that it reduces everything to the material it is also a dangerous one. Science, I am sure, is fully capable of telling us the how of things but not the why.

I would like to suggest the following edit to the final sentence of the above excerpt:

"People with high levels of dopamine are more likely to find significance in coincidences, and pick out meaning and patterns where there are none apparent to those with low levels of dopamine"

The urge to update this old blog (not too old, actually - 6 months of age in just about six days) is upon me and a certain window of time in which to do so has opened before me. As I sit here at the keyboard, however, I find that I am simply not in the mood (despite the aforementioned urge) to discuss recent events either personal or global, nor yet am I currently inclined to discourse on any number of subjects that might take my fancy. What's a blogger to do?

Perhaps this is a good time for the second installment of The Paper Trail, the proposed series highlighting some of the less embarrasing writings from my late teenage years. Yes, perhaps it is.

Todays entry is a short one. Enjoy and please remember these pieces are presented as originally penned with no prettying up or editing.

The Paper Trail

"Come on home." said the little man "We ain't got nothing but love for you."

The slimy green blob regarded the little man and decided it would be best to eat.

"Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!!!!" said the little man.

R. Cody 2002

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Early this morning, Sarah will be going to the hospital where I was born in San Jose to find some kind of relief under a surgeon's knife. Read this post if you don't know why.

The first light of dawn will find us at the hospital. Not a good way to start the day unless you work there.

The performing doctor tells us that the procedure of removing disks from the spine is a fairly common one - but then, he's a neurosurgeon.

Happy thoughts and well wishes are appreciated.

Shine, Perishing Republic

While this America settles in the mould of its vulgarity,
heavily thickening to empire,
And protest, only a bubble in the molten mass, pops
and sighs out, and the mass hardens,

I sadly smiling remember that the flower fades to make
fruit, the fruit rots to make earth.
Out of the mother; and through the spring exultances,
ripeness and decadence; and home to the mother.

You making haste haste on decay: not blameworthy;
life is good, be it stubbornly long or suddenly
A mortal splendor: meteors are not needed less than
mountains: shine, perishing republic.

But for my children, I would have them keep their
distance from the thickening center; corruption
Never has been compulsory, when the cities lie at the
monster's feet there are left the mountains.

And boys, be in nothing so moderate as in love of man,
a clever servant, insufferable master.
There is the trap that catches the noblest spirits,
that caught - they say - God, when he walked on earth.

- Robinson Jeffers, 1925 -

Like D.H. Lawrence a while back, Jeffers is a poet/writer that I knew by name only until recently. Making my way through the Vintage Books edition of his Selected Poems has been a delight and an education in the power of poetry. The above piece, for instance, resonates with a vision of man and his institutions that, in light of current events and considering it was penned well over 70 years ago, seems prophetic. Click here if you are interested in some brief analysis of the piece above.

That much of Jeffers' poetry is informed by the rugged and haunted beauty of the Carmel/Big Sur region of the Pacific Coast where he spent most of his life is, perhaps, one reason why I find his words so compelling. This is a landscape that I am familiar with, a place where the beauty and power of nature is a tangible thing, a place I would gladly live given my druthers and one which has inspired a number of poems from my own pen - Twenty Seven Years and Big Sur (impressions) to name a couple.

Someday, perhaps, Sarah and myself will leave America to it's vulgarities, sell all those possessions that are not essential, and find a home where our only neighbors are ancient Redwood trees and the whisper of the surf will greet us in the morning and lull us to dreams by night.

That there was something wrong with all his work Le Maistre well knew. Words and music, as the critics never failed to remind him, "just missed" that nameless "something" which would have made them good - perhaps great. Moreover, he was sane enough to realize that the blame lay not with an uncomprehending public, but simply with himself. The spark of inspiration that was beyond question in all his work never gathered to the flame stage. Thus his productions warmed people, but did not light them.

-Algernon Blackwood, an excerpt from the short story, The Man from the "Gods", in The Lost Valley and Other Stories-

I wonder if Blackwood ever felt this way about his own work?

I can certainly empathize with poor Le Maistre. That haiku in the post below(7/13/02) for instance. I saw a tree, already a beautiful thing, gilded by sunlight and made beatific. It was without doubt a haiku moment but did that moment make it into the words? Perhaps there is a dim glimmer of suchness in those three lines. Perhaps. . .

There are some who would argue that words, being the symbols that they are, could do nothing but fail me in my attempt to transcribe the experience of the illuminated tree.

They might be right, too, but I had to try.

pine tree made golden
by the westering sun -
a pillar of fire

I have been submitting poems and stories to prospective publishers recently, both on-line and off. If I was still in the habit of scrap booking my rejection slips (as I did so many years ago when I first started to submit my stuff) there would be two more among them.

Both Glimmer Train and The Manzanita Quarterly were foolish enough to return unused my golden words.

The folks over at Short Stuff, however, seem to recognize genius when they see it and have included some of my haiku and tanka inspired forms in their latest issue. You can take a look at my contributions right here if you are so inclined.

Also, if you are so inclined, wish me luck with my submissions currently under consideration at Deep Tapioca and Night Train. Chances are these two will both come back home but, in the immortal words of Fats Waller, "One never knows, do one?"

The bad emotional weather mentioned in my last post (see below) has broken but these are still painful days for Sarah and myself. Painful for Sarah because she is suffering from a number of herniated discs in her lower lumbar area, the agony of which is keeping her more-or-less bed ridden. Painful for myself because it is well nigh unbearable to see the person I love most in this world suffering. With the aid of pain medication, patience and (most of all) love, we are making our way through these painful days, hoping all the while that relief is imminent. Toward that end we are going to visit a neurosurgeon tomorrow.

I am often dubious of medical science (more appropriately, perhaps, I should say I am dubious of the hubris which medical science often displays) but I am hopeful that the strange cult of neurosurgery can give my Sarah back to herself and me.

The last few days here in Oakland (where I live)/ San Francisco (where I work) have been composed mainly of blue sky and sunshine. Lots of each. It almost feels like summer, which is unusual for San Francisco in the summertime.

Fine, fair weather. The kind of golden hued days that made me feel immortal as a child.

My inner weather these last few days, however, has been punctuated by brooding black clouds, occasional thunderstorms, several inches of rain.

Sarah has suffered with me through these strange days of sunshine and deluge. I thank the Universe for her presence. Even in the murkiest downpour, I see rainbows every time I look in her eyes.

Searching the net for information regarding the death threats Michael Newdow has received from decent god fearing Americans for his currently controversial suit regarding the Pledge of Allegiance, I came across this story about a man attacked by a deer while performing routine maintenance on his car at an Ohio gas station.

Strangely enough, just yesterday as I walked home from the bus that delivered me from a hard days work I witnessed a young deer clicking down the street in something of a panic. The animal trotted past me on the opposite sidewalk, turned the corner and vanished into whatever fate awaited it. This is not something one sees everday in Oakland, California. Motivated by a concern for the safety of the animal and anybody who might encounter it in this very urban neighborhood, I notified the animal control people.

I can only hope that one way or another my little Bambi made it to safety.

I urge everbody who has not already done so to pop over to Frank Paynter's place and catch up with the discussion of "genderism" he has initiated and is bravely moderating.

Do you think you know what it means to be a man or a woman? Read some of the contributions at Sandhill and think again.

Not being a prominent American, I wasn't asked to sign this statement of conscience* but I am happy to add my signature in spirit and to endorse the statement with all of my heart.

With you or against you, George W.? That's easy.

Just watch me turn my back on your illiterate, war mongering, U.S. Constitution mocking self.


* Thanks to Tom Tomorrow for the Statement of Conscience link!

When the great Tao is forgotten,
goodness and piety appear.
When the body's intelligence declines,
cleverness and knowledge step forth.
When there is no peace in the family,
filial piety begins.
When the country falls into chaos,
patriotism is born.

-Tao Te Ching, verse 18, from a translation by Stephen Mitchell-

I am one of the lonely tonight. . .

Sarah is far from home on business again.

The tanka below is for her. Sorry to say it is not a new one. I don't even have the moon tonight.


The hesitant moon
hides behind clouds, lights dimly
their ragged edges.
Empty pillows on the bed,
another night without you.

Richard Cody, 2002

I have been writing one thing or another for a good portion of my 35 years on this planet. To the right of me as I type these words is a large wicker basket (I have learned from watching Trading Spaces that baskets and trunks are practical and aesthetically pleasing storage spaces) which contains a stack of notebooks and binders filled to bursting with the detritus of a lifetime spent indulging artistic impulse and the urge to self-expression.

That stack is nearly two feet tall and includes material dating back twenty years or more in some cases. Sifting through this paper trail is a curious (sense 3) experience for me. It is interesting to see how my writing style has evolved over the years. Some of this stuff is so bad that it is painful in a self-conscious kind of way to read. There are treasures as well, though, if I may say so myself - strange glimmering shards of inspiration, softly luminous jewels of imagination buried in the black soil of mad teenage scrawlings.

It is the latter, I hope, that I propose to share with you here. It seems at one point in the early to mid 1980's that I experienced a definite phase in style and format. The vignette (3a) was my specialty. A few short paragraphs conjuring a scene on the page. Not unlike, come to think of it, what I have been doing recently here and here.

It is in a spirit of openness that I present for you the least embarrasing of this material from bygone days in the first of a potential series of posts I will call The Paper Trail. I post this material as is - no cosmetic tweaking of grammar or punctuation, no tidying of sloppy ideas or execution. The raw output of my young mind for your elucidation and entertainment.

Please keep in mind that I was doing time in my teenage years - between 14 and 17 I would guess - when the words below were written.

The Paper Trail

I sit here, and my thoughts as they so often do slip back to those warm summer nights. Not so long ago, yet seeming like an eternity away.

The two of us sitting out on my front lawn, drinking lemonade in the lazy summer heat, talking and waving happily to the passerby. Talking. . . yes we talked, long into the night. It's the one night that strikes me now in particular, his rough but somehow soft voice sounding out to me in the twilight of sunset.

"Hey," he said softly, as if he didn't care if I heard him or not.

"Yeah?" I answered as I observed the growing amount of red in the sky.

"Have you ever laid awake at night" he continued "safe in your bed and heard the sound of an army of rabid tootsie rolls parading through the streets of postwar Australia while viscious kindergarten children disembowled their parents?"

I glanced over at him and thought that maybe once, as a child, I had heard such a sound. "No." I answered.

He looked at me with those burning red eyes full of some emotion that I couldn't name. "Well I have." he said coldly.


Don't even think of plagiarizing this laurel in the crown of literature, I hereby copyright it in this year of The Goddess, 2002.

So much for discipline. . .

I managed a poem a week for four weeks. All poems that I am pleased with, I might add. See here and here for two examples posted previously.

Four weeks but I missed my self imposed deadline last Friday. The well was dry. . .

Sarah opined that it was a bad idea to begin with, this time-clock creativity. She agrees that discipline is a practice worthy of pursuit but maintains that art will not be rushed. She is right, of course. Those beautiful ladies we call The Muses will not be bent to my schedule.

Calliope, Erato, Euterpe, Polyhymnia, Thalia. . . I ask you creatures of grace to share my company.


I await your presence.

Has a book ever changed your life?

This is a difficult question for me to answer. Certainly, various pieces and types of literature have electrified my imagination, stirred my spirit, and challenged my intellect (such as it is) over the years. But has any of them worked a definite change in the way I view the world or live my life? I can't recall any shocking and immediate changes occurring in my thinking as the result of the written word. I am sure, however, that the seeds of ideas harvested from disparate texts throughout my life have cross pollinated and taken root in the rich, dark soil at the bottom of my mind. What fruit or blossom they might bear after passing through the alembic of that mind I call mine remains, perhaps, to be seen.

A book that is bearing plentiful fruit for me at the moment is Riane Eisler's, The Chalice and the Blade. To attempt to sum this book up briefly would be to undermine the relevance of its topic but, in short, it concerns itself with the oppression, suppression and repression of women and femine ideals such as compassion, equality and sharing.

As I make my way through this book, I find issues such as male agression, war, feminism and the relationship of the sexes in general taking on new dimensions. Ms. Eisler, drawing on archeological evidence and utilizing the science of systems analysis, paints a very convincing picture of a world that might have been and yet may be if we can break free of what she refers to as "Dominator" ideals such as ranking, possession and agression which have shaped the cultures of the world for the last few millenia or so. As I make my way through this book I become increasingly convinced that perhaps the crucial problem facing us (the world community) today and one which underlies our shared history of war, genocide, and violence in general is one of gender. Specifically the female gender and it's place, or lack thereof, at the table in the conduct of social, cultural, human affairs.

As Elizabeth Cady Stanton said in 1848:

"Among the many important questions which have been brought before the public, there is none that more vitally affects the human family than that which is technically callled 'Women's Rights'."

There are certainly more women in positions of power and influence today than there were in Stanton's time but this statement rings just as true today as it did 150 years ago.

As this man's world spins faster and faster (where she stops nobody knows) into a future of environmental degradation and yet more war, let us hope it is a statement that is ringing loud enough to be heard.