One Week in the Life of One Writer:

• On May 1, 2023, I began writing my story. And you know one of my problems with it? 

My age. 

 Not that I tell my age in the story, but having my father enlist in WWII rather gives me away.

When someone asked my mother-in-law her age, she responded, "I'll forgive you for asking that personal question."

 I have followed in her footsteps. 

I'm not ashamed of my age. I am, in fact, proud of it. I just don't want to be judged by it. When I told my Naturopath how old I am, she gave me a Palliative page to fill out so the hospital would know what to do with me if I came in unconscious.

Crimmeny.

See what I mean?

• Okay, besides having the nerve to allow my age to be known, I decided that after accumulating a life of observations, teachings, and study, those learnings shouldn't be locked up in a trunk and buried 150 feet down. They are to be shared. Something I say will make a difference in a reader's life.

Imagine strips of paper upon which you have written your insights. You throw them into the wind. Other people, like children, arms outstretched, running through their first snow flurry, instead of catching snowflakes on their tongues, catch those paper strips. If they like what's written there, they keep the scrap. If not,they throw it back into the wind to be picked up by someone else.

My strips will contain my life plus plain talk about magical things. (I use the word magic metaphysically.) I know physics is at work. I also understand that something divine is swirling around us. Although I was motivated to write a memoir, I wanted it to be about something other than me. I want to encourage self-growth and writing as a healing device.

 I encourage people to write their own stories because their life is important.

(I'm not talking about the "Ain't it awful story. " Rather, I'm saying, "I stand as One, but I have 10,000 behind me." story. )

• My manuscript, soon to be a book, has not been professionally edited. And on a keyboard, I'm accident-prone with tunnel vision. (Metaphorically).

Yesterday, however, I read that beta readers might give it a shot and tell me if I'm blowing smoke. Volunteers are happily accepted.

• This morning, I was inspired by Elizabeth Gilbert (Eat, Pray, Love) when I read her responses to age questions. She has decided to honor her age. She recently buzzed her hair and doesn't fuss with her face because she's tired of all that. If men can get by with it, she figured, women can. (She's cute all bare faced and hairless.)

• I apologize to all who checked into my Substack site. While I dinked with it, I didn't know if it was going out to subscribers each time I changed it. I'm trying to master this site before those throngs of subscribers come bursting in. I'll embarrass myself to a few, sorry if it's you. I was having trouble with my images.
  

I have gone back to Joyce Davis Substack when I saw many Jo's Substacks there are. But then there are many Joyce Davis, too.

 

https://joycedavis.substack.com

 

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• This week, I've been grieving over a lost love—a house we built, I designed, and General contracted. It's been sold for a time, and that's fine; it's the new owner's house, but it was my baby. When I saw the clear-cut of our once forested property and the renovation/remodel, I felt he had not only ripped the forest but also the heart of the house. The logs needed to be tended, though; that's great. It's the interior I'm suffering with.  The property will go on sale next month.

 

            

 

Did Methuselah Really Live 969 Years?

If Methuselah lived 969 years, how could that be?

I don't know if they counted years the same as now. Perhaps they used a different calendar. But if people lived as long as indicated, how did they do it?

 In 1939 Dr. Suda Benet found an apparent error in the translation of the Bible. Not about Methuselah, but about anointed oils. Hold on, this applies.

 

The Bible talks much about applying oils. And how specific individuals were "The anointed ones."

 

The anointed ones were the aristocracy, the priests, and the whoopie-do people in high places. The commoners were denied their use, forbidden to use them actually. 

 

#Methuselah must have slipped through, for his claim to fame was simple. He lived for 969 years, then he died. At age 187, he fathered Lamech, Noah's father—well, that's impressive.

 

So, why did people live so long?

 

Today I became hooked on a presentation that came under the guise of "Interesting facts, 7 of Histories Strangest Coincidences."

 The coincidence was that 300 years ago, people's age dropped when Symmachus, a pope in Rome, decided to make Roma Christian. He translated the Hebrew Old Testament into Greek. For a clergyman who could read Hebrew and Greek, that was significant. 

 

 

The error in translation Dr. Benet found was an error for one ingredient in the anointing oil recipe. It was for--drum roll—can you believe—cannabis. 

I listened to a long, long, long spiel about anointed oils, complete with a pastor's own discovery of the recipe and how his wife had much pain and mobility problems, and he tested his recipes on her.

One day, after taking the anointed oil recipe for some time at a park picnic, a little boy accidentally threw a ball at his wife, and she agilely caught it. His congregation was shocked, for they knew her problems. They wanted to know what had happened to her. Long story short, the entire congregation soon took the Pastor's oils. His recipe took 33 tries, so I don't know if I have the proportions correct, but I'm not charging anything to tell this story, so you can take it as you will.

All the ingredients are anti-inflammatory, so I thought it made sense that it would help ailments. And now that CBD oil is in favor, we're good to go.

The presentation I listened to was about selling a book for $69.00 on how to make the recipe. No ingredients were included. 

Today I bought the raw ingredients, no infused oils, except for CBD oil, aka cannabis. Finally, I found a use for my mortar and pestle for raw ingredients need to be ground. 

Here it is The Lost Recipe of The Gods:

1.     Cannabis Myrrh

2.     Cinnamon

3.     Cassia flower

4.     Olive oil

 

Many recipes exist with varying ingredients, but I know that when people deviate from the original, many things, including recipes, lose their power. Thus, people lose faith in it, and it dies.

"The formula or recipe for sacred anointing oil is given in Exodus 30:23-25: "Collect choice spices—12½ pounds of pure myrrh, 6¼ pounds of fragrant cinnamon, 6¼ pounds of fragrant calamus, 24 and 12½ pounds of cassia—as measured by the weight of the sanctuary shekel. 

"…The olive oil, used as a base, equaled about a gallon. Blend these ingredients to make a holy anointing oil." 

(One gallon of olive oil weighs 128 ounces or 8 pounds.)

Scholars think the spices were boiled to extract their essences, the fragrant water was added to the oil, and then the mixture was boiled again to evaporate the water.

Well, it looks like I need to boil the raw ingredients. We'll see how that works, and I'm not going to make gallons, so I'm considering a 1-1/2-2-32-8 ratio. I don't know how much cannabis to use since I will use oil.

Here is another recipe if you want to use prepared oils:

24 drops myrrh essential oil

12 drops cinnamon essential oil

12 drops calamus (CBD oil)

24 drops cassia oil

32 drops olive oil

Would that ratio be 2/1/1/2/2.6?

Some have added Frankincense oil to the recipe.

(In Exodus 30:23:33. God tells Moses how to make 4.33 gallons of anointing oil. Maybe some of the oil was for use on the animals. Now many people are not only using the oil on themselves (or orally) but on their pets as well.

 

....a dad joke from one of my blog readers

 

Two turtles were walking down two different roads.  They were going their normal turtle speed but approaching an intersection at right angles. Plod, plod, plod.  It just so happened that they both came into the intersection at exactly the same time and ran (that's a stretch for a verb) into each other and both flipped over and were rushed off to a vet in an ambulance.  Inspector squirrel ran out to the scene and noticed there was a snail right at the corner and asked, "Mr. Snail, did you see what happened?  Please describe the scene!"  Mr. Snail said, "Yes I was there, but it happened so fast!"

 

There are a few suggestions for Christmas gifts on 

https://jos-storebooksandcoffee.blogspot.com

Bounce, smell good, write in your notebook, bike while listening to music, and drink your coffee in a barn mug. 

Thanks for the visit.

Jo