Hi Dalton! As next year is a big one for me, I'm trying to finish and send out a couple of manuscripts and get back into making music, somehow from the wheelchair. As the weather goes from hot to cold ( 85 degree days to 40 degree nights) I'm finding it challenging to stay up as my body is not good at temperature regulation.
I was hurt to find a site illegally selling one of my patterns. And the site (in China) has blocked my IP address. Sigh. If I did not have transverse myelitis, I could take it in stride -- but paralyzed and having devised this way to put a few, much-needed pennies in my pocket, this feels devastating. The challenge is not just the physical challenge of pain, disability and energy, it's that all this leaves me feeling more pain . I now know all the places to lodge a complaint, but I've heard from none of them. " Nothing pleases me more than having some smoothed piece of beautiful wood in my hand, like Birdseye maple, walnut burl, red oak. I wear a duck call around my neck at all times. If a seizure strikes I can blow it to get attention. You see, this is New York; you don't use a coach's whistle, or everyone will run away, thinking it is a policeman. The duck call makes people turn around to see what it is, with open and innocent curiosity. That is the attitude I want when they see me asking for help because I am having a seizure. And also because this is New York, if you have even a gran-mal, no one will notice. I only wish I could polish my soul as easily as I polish a wooden duck call to make it as beautiful as possible. But it is not so simple. Polishing the duck call wood does provide a lesson: by hard work its hidden beauty will come out, and by no other way except hard work is this possible. And, you cannot make it better than what beauty it inherently possesses. "I beseech Thee, O my God, by Thy beauty, stinging forth above the horizon of eternity, a beauty which, as soon as it revealed itself, the kingdom of beauty boweth down in worship, magnifying it in ringing tones, to grant that I may die to all that I possess and live to whatsoever belongeth unto Thee. Thou seest me, O my God, holding to Thy Name the Most-Holy, the Most-Luminous, the Most_Mighty, the Most-Great, the Most-Exalted, the Most-Glorious, and clinging to the hem of the Robe to which have clung all in this world and in the world to come." — Baha-u-llah" These are such beautiful, inspiring words! I am so glad you've devised a way to get assistance. I pray that a solution arrives. Joy in the making, Akua
