Heat in France
Dayle in Limoux – Day #59
September 2, 2022
Do you know what this is? I didn’t either.
I was looking for baggies in my little kitchen not long after I arrived in Limoux. I found these, and was trying to figure it out and laughing. No clue. These little pockets and a small opening. I kept trying to pull them apart, to no avail.
I was looking for ice trays and couldn’t find any. And in the freezer of my very cool small SMEG frig looked like there was a frozen ‘package.’ I thought maybe it could be used for an ‘ice vest’ (102 that day) or maybe a cooler.
When the owner of this building came up to talk with me about something, I asked her about ice trays. She opened the freezer and handed me the frozen blue ‘package.’ She started laughing when I told her what I thought it was. Nope. They’re ice cubes!
The small opening was for the water that magically closes once the pockets of water are filled.
This is what it looks like when the pockets are filled.
And, the next morning, voilà! Glaçons!
Then, you just pop them out with the real danger of frost bite. :)
The plastic waste is a drag. Need those retro metal trays. I remember these!
Just about the hottest summer on record in France, as well as the worse year known for mosquitoes. And this little guy in particular causing havoc: the Tiger mosquito. I feel like I’m a walking test strip for malaria.
The Aedes albopictus [Tiger], originally from Asia, has been present in France since 2004. It is the vector for diseases such as dengue, chikungunya and Zika. [https://www.pasteur.fr]
I’ve lost count. Thinking mosquito netting. Three more on my face overnight. Do mosquitoes sense bites from other mosquitoes and then hone in on that particular body area? All summer, nothing on my face until two days ago…no clue.
See that dark brown tip at the very lower part of France? That’s me. Yay.
Very close to the river L’Aude. Probably a particular breeding ground. They love the water for hatching their babies. And there are lots of babies.
Aide-moi. [Help]
Jour du marche’ in Limoux! (Market day in Limoux!)
Never gets old. J’adore the outdoor cafe’s in France. Cafe’ avec de la creme, and Perrier avec glaçon. Parfaite.
Spotted this structure today in Limoux. I think it’s an old barn, quite old; other structures built around it over time. Isn’t it so great?! I found a similar structure in Alet-les-Bains. Need to call Chip & Jo. :)
Plotting my next adventure in Languedoc. Here we go!
À bientôt.
🦟
Dayle in Limoux – Day #34
August 8, 2022Another 37 C day in Limoux! 98 Fahrenheit. The heat is cumulative and defeating. Makes it difficult for hiking and exploring…depleting. Some days it feels as though there just isn’t enough
Thoughts…
Bored male leaders massaging their EGO’s and need for greed contemplating annihilation for the win.
Euronews
‘UN Chief Antonio Guterres has called for the end of military operation around Europe’s largest nuclear plant, hit with a series of bombardments since last Friday, with both Russian and Ukrainian forces blaming one another for the attacks. “Any attack on nuclear power plants is a suicidal thing,” the UN’s secretary-general told reporters in Tokyo. “I hope that the IAEA [International Atomic Energy Agency] will be able to access the power plant.” Nuclear risks to humanity are only “a misunderstanindng” way from nuclear annihilation.’
History is an endless argument.
And.
Tipping points go both ways.
From Marianne Williamson,
‘May my eyes be open, that I might see more beauty; may my ears be open, that I might hear more truth; may my spirit be open that I might feel the tender touch of [Gaia].’
~
There are two paths you can go by, but in the long run, there’s still time to change the road you’re on, and it makes me wonder.’
-Lez Zeppelin
The 7th Generation Principle is based on an ancient Iroquois philosophy that the decisions we make today should result in a sustainable world seven generations into the future.
‘Oxford philosopher William MacAskill offers one such outlook, zooming out on the timeline of human civilization to put this moment into context. The story of humanity, Oxford philosopher William MacAskill argues, is just beginning. In fact, if history were a novel, we’d still be in the prologue.
This is encouraging. It means that we have both the power and the responsibility to aim the trajectory of civilization in a positive direction, the idea that positively influencing the long-term future is a key moral priority of our time.’
-Cornelia Channing, Editorial Assistant, NYTimes Sunday Opinion
“Here in Japan, paper cranes symbolize the hope for a future without nuclear weapons. There is only one solution to the nuclear threat: not to have nuclear weapons at all.”
-António Guterres, Security-General of the U.N.
R
E
T
R
O
Let’s make more paper cranes, and use old telephones, and refrigerate without Chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs), compounds released into the atmosphere since the 1930s through air-conditioning, refrigeration, blowing agents in foams, insulations and packing materials, propellants in aerosol cans, and as solvents.
‘How to Relive the Pleasures of a Landline’
OUI!
Art work from Getty.
From The New Yorker’s Rachel Syme.
“If you call me and I am at home, chances are you are going to reach me on an actual, old-fashioned, dial-’em-up telephone. The one that currently sits on my desk is a putty-colored rotary model circa the nineteen-sixties, with a weighted handset and a long, sproingy, yellowing cord that scrunches pleasantly between the fingers like al dente fusilli. I purchased this particular phone last fall, on eBay, for $19.99. You can find far pricier vintage telephones on that site, of course—retro phones in Instagram-friendly colors such as avocado green and Barbie pink.”
Barbie.
“It makes me feel glamorous and put together to grab my vintage receiver, even if I am still in my pajamas.”
C’est possible!
Most of what we encounter is driven by emotions, and our emotions are always relative. When we’re shopping for a car or an avocado, we’re buying the way it makes us feel, not how it would make someone else feel. -Seth Godin
Emotion, perhaps why grace and forgiveness, although the Universe’s natural default, or so difficult for humans to feel, and choose.
Dualism…non-dualism. Reading and researching on the tenets of the Cathar philosophy, their way of living and belief, versus, the Nicene Council Christianity begat in the 4th century anno domini by then Roman Emperor Constantine.
Fr Richard Rohr, whom I adore, gets in the weeds, I think when he promotes non-dualism in religion.
“The body is rightly reasserting its goodness and importance. Can we somehow honor both body and spirit together? When Christianity is in any way anti-body, it is not authentic (?) Christianity. The incarnation tells us that body and spirit must fully operate and be respected as one.”
He then tries to forward his argument with behavioral psychology.
“Many Christians falsely assumed that if they could “die” to their body, their spirit would for some reason miraculously arise. Often the opposite was the case. After centuries of body rejection, and the lack of any positive body theology, the West is now trapped in substance addiction, obesity, anorexia, bulimia, plastic surgery, and an obsession with appearance and preserving these bodies. Our poor bodies, which Jesus affirmed, have become the receptacles of so much negativity and obsession.”
Juxtapose this with the Cathar belief, and the reason they were massacred, often burned at the stake, by the hundreds of thousands, most likely a million murdered. The writing offered by Nick Lambert, from the book, ‘The Cathar View.’
“The eternal battle of good and evil deities is at the centre of the Cathar worldview and although this belief came in a variety of forms, they were very similar to the dualistic faiths were specifically prohibited by orthodox Christianity (Constantine): the Gnostics, the Manichaeans, the Paulicians and the Bogomils of the Balkans. It is upon the issue of dualism that much of the excitement and controversy around the Cathars rests. Absolute dualism is the position adopted in the Book of Two Principles:
‘The good God is not the creator of the base and tangible elements of this world; another creator is responsible for them. God is alright but not in the sense that He can create evil; what He does not desire He cannot do. He is omnipotent over all good things, but there must be another creator form whom all evils flow, who in no way derives from the good God. The evil one is eternal, as are his works.’
The key word being ‘works.’ Works, in humanity, through the body, choices and behaviors, are from the material world, and the material world is the ‘body.’ Pretty sure when the body dies, the body and soul are separated. Otherwise, yikes. Christians, beginning in the 4th century, start dancing around this and never stop. For the Cathars, it wasn’t that confusing. And most were absolute.
More.
“The dualist explanation of good and evil gods was less equivocal than this compromise, and the spread of the Cathars show how compelling it for many people. It was silly more consistent, given the state of the world, to attribute equal powers to the contending gods. Another factor was the ‘jealous god’ of Moses and the Israelites, and the peaceful philosophy of Jesus and his Apostles. […] Strong echoes of this cosmology are found centuries later in William Blake’s radical interpretations of the Bible, (like the) Old Testament’s Jehovah, and Blake cast him as an implacable figure, conveying something of his antithetical and flawed creative powers as the Cathars one saw them.”
“Dualism, then, was the fulcrum about which the rest of Cathar beliefs turned, informing their eschatology (they did not, it seems, subscribe to an apocalyptic Day of Judgment because they did not believe in the resurrection of the body). This belief in reincarnation likely derived from Neo-platonism and the ancient Greek philosophy of metempsychosis. The transmigration of souls was specifically opposed in Christianity but became a central tenet of Catharsis, and the ascension that they aimed for was a liberation from the constant cycle of death and rebirth, rather similar to Buddhist beliefs. and Manichaeism.”
Dualism, the reason Bérenger Saunière included the ruler of earthly evil, Rex Mundi, in his church dedicated to Mary Magdalene after he made his parchment discoveries hidden away for centuries on the grounds of Rennes-les-Chateau.
[Rex Mundi now behind protective plexiglass because someone tried to destroy it once. If you don’t agree, then annihilate. Your thoughts, Pope (not so) Innocent III.]
When you V O T E in the U.S. midterms, remember these faces and names. These are the senators, men, who cow-tailed to their dark money lobbyists. This is who they show allegiance, not their constituents, who are in need and in diabetic health crisis.
