FGC, Thursday, 8pm

A busy, fun day. The workshop was wonderful as usual. I asked the general question: "How do I (and others) assist someone going through a hard time, or tough decision/life choice type of thing and not take on the weight of the person's pain? And if you do take on their pain, how do you ground that or release that so you don't feel exhausted?" (Two questions, sorry) Many ideas came forth from the group. One woman showed me a grounding exercise I could do. Some people bathe in lemon juice or shower in vinegar. (I am not making this up. These are people I trust and they say it works for them. Who am I to doubt them?) I have not tried these things as yet. Others said that what I could do was accompany the person and not try to "fix things", which is something I have tendency to do. Another person reminded me that I am not the person who's doing the healing, that it's only through the Light of God that healing happens. So, I can be a channel for God/Goddess/Light/Divine energy. I've experienced that in my veterinary work.

I went to a distressing yet fascinating exhibit called "Traces". It's about German-American Internment during WW2. General George Marshall (you know, the guy that cooked up the Marshall Plan) concocted this plan to kidnap German-Americans from America and many Latin American countries, put them into camps here, for use in exchanges with the Germans or Japanese. These humans would be exchanged for "American Nationals" held prisoner by those evil Japanese and German warmongers. People were taken away in the night. A large number of these German-Americans were sent back to Germany, many of them being Jewish. No one will ever know if they were sent to their deaths in the camps there. So this is one of the precedents for keeping the "enemy combatants" at Guantanamo. Possibly until they die, it seems. The US government has imprisoned it's own citizens, other country's citizens and well........pretty much everyone has been "victims" of the US government. The blue prints for Auschwitz are still available. All that would be needed at Gitmo would be gas chambers and a few crematoria. Voila'! The Final Solution appears again. As it has already in so many places since the Second World War and before that. And way before that.

During the Second World War, German prisoners of war worked on my dad's farm in Nebraska, had plenty of food, no fences, other than the ones for pigs and cattle. Some of them even got to eat in restaurants, while the black people could only eat in back if they could eat there at all. Why does this all keep repeating? I'm still struggling with God's plan. How does this fit? I still believe in God but what's the deal?

Then Mrs Ether, Grace Ether and Poodledoc, Jr climbed into her car for a trip to the Franconia Sculpture Gardens, just over the border in Minnesota. Well, we basically got lost, had some fun and frustration but after a quick cell phone chat with Mr Ether, we were able to use our trusty GPS system (aka a Wisconsin road map) to locate the Garden. It was funky, spooky and beautiful. Did I say it was odd? Well it was odd? But it was fun. We were a little late getting back so had to do the drive thru at DQ. Luckily, they were serving Dilly-Foo burgers (that's their new health-conscious tofu burger). Poodledoc, Jr opted for the Dilly-Foo Chili Dog, which he said was simply a "taste treat". Then he and Grace went off swimming and I ran to the Gathering Bookstore for one more "fix". I'm a book junkie. And I'm not recovering.

Feeling good but tired. Tomorrow's the last full day of the Gathering. Then home to Madison. Poodledoc, Jr is really missing his mom and his wonder dog, Lenny. I'm really missing my dog, but looking forward to seeing him and re-arranging my apartment now that my roommate is gone.

And...............the Cubs are only 5 games behind the Brewers. At last my prediction that the Cubs will win the World Series is coming true! (of course, I predict this every year and predictably, the Cubs fold at some point during the season. But I'm a hopeful person. Not delusional. Hopeful!)