Sunday, December 10, 2023
In bed at 9, awake at 3:30, up at 3:52. Let Lilly out. 34°, high of 34°, wind WNW at 15 mph, 7-16/29, 0.25" of precip in last 24 hours, none expected for next 10 days. Sunrise at 7:12, sunset at 4:16. Solar noon at 11:44, alt. 24°
Treadmill; pain. 31:39 & 0.70 while watching the 2nd half of the Wisconsin-Iowa women's basketball game. Iowa 87, Wisconsin 65. Caitlin Clark had 28 points, 4 3-pointers, 50% shooting from deep, plus 9 rebounds and 5 assists. Her percentage from more than 3 feet beyond the 3 point line is 68% for the season. Breakfast: CBH & eggs, Dinner: baked ziti
I'm grateful for much and many, so much and so many it's hard to focus right now. I keep a short list on my phone, as I do of so many things, from items to get on the next trip to the grocery store to favorite movies, to what I love about Geri, even for some reason to artists and gifted others who have died young. I can't remember why I started the last list, but there it is and it's a long one, as is the movie list, and Geri's list. Each of them serves as reminder and a record as some memories grow dimmer. There is a weakness or challenge in making and keeping lists and that is to read too much into the orden within the list, to weigh the items on the list differently depending on the order in which they are listed: first or top of the list = most important or most significant in some way, and further down the list = the least important or significant. Sometimes it's true, but more often it's not. Rank order ⍯ importance or significance. We tend to love lists and especially at the end of each year we ae flooded with them: this year's best movies or best anything. Time magazine's person of the year is Taylor Swift. She beat out the others on the list: the Hollywood strikers, Xi Jinping, Sam Altman, the Trump prosecutors, the Barbie movie, Vladimir Putin, King Charles III, and Jerome Powell. What are we to make of this, other than that we are attracted by lists.
Love Has Won: The Cult of Mothr God is a recent HBO 3-part documentary of which we watched the first two last night on MAX. I wondered whether is was a real documentary, or a spoof of one, a mockumentary. It turned out to be a real one, based on the story of Amy Carlson, a mother of three, former McDonald's manager, who abandoned kith and kin one day and went off to found an internet-based cult called Love Has Won. She was its leader as "Mother God," the reincarnation of God who had previously been among us as, e.g., Joan of Arc and Marilyn Monroe, and who, in the present person of Mother God, called Mom by her followers, has been sent to shoulder the sins of all mankind. She communes regularly with 'the Galactics,' most commonly Robin Williams, loves to fuck her Father God (a succession of 4 loser/lovers) and to stay constantly drunk on alcohol, weed, and hallucinagens, called her "medicines." She died at age 45 of alcoholism, anorexia, and over-consumption of colloidal silver, a dietary supplement which turned her body blue. Her mummifed body was discovered at the home of the cultists in Crestone, Colorado on April 29, 2021, which Wikipedia describes as "a spiritual center for some religions, including a Hindu temple, a Zen center, several Tibetan Buddhist centers, and miscellaneous New Age happenings," all in a town with an official population of 141.
Once I realized that the film was not a spoof, it became sort of pathologically and voyeuristically interesting, watching emotionally-needy and insecure, and deepy-delusioal persons living out their lives, their fantasies and delusions in a group home. They were into QAnon and other wacko conspiracy theories along with New Age mystical or spiritual thinking that they accessed in abundance on social media, but in their cases, all centered on Amy Carlson as Mother God. I was reminded of the Manson family, "Squeaky" Fromm, Patricia Krenwinnkel, Keskue van Houten, et al. Like the Love Has Won crowd, they too were deeply delusional and believed Charles Manson was a manifestation of God. But I am also reminded of mainstream religions and the delusions on which they are based, like the Resurrection, the Ascension, the Assumption, Transubstantiation, appearances of the BVM at Fatima, at Lourdes, at Guadalupe, at Knock, and whodathought, here in Champion, Wisconsin in the Town of Green Bay in 1859 at what is now the National Shrine of Our Lady of Good Hope or Our Lady of Champion and in the Town of Necedah in Juneau County in 1949 . What also comes to mind from the documentary, especially with the cult's embrace of QAnon, are the delusional supporters of Donald Trump, the MAGA crowd, who continue to believe the 2020 election was 'stolen' despite the absence of any evidence to support the belief, not to mention the pizza parlor pedophile stuff. With so many people so delusional and so many other people so ignorant and/or stupid, and so many, left and right, who have simply given up on our polarized political system and undemocratic government, what does our future hold?
LTMW I see our neighborhood flock of wild turkeys have returned, this time approaching from the south.😀. I love to watch them run. They remind me of the trotters and pacers on horse tracks.
Chair Yoga. I found what looks like a very good chair yoga video on YouTube that is actually part of the VA's Whole Health program that I am now enrolled in. I like the leader, her voice and delivery.
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