avengers Archives - Owl Medicine: Shamanic Healing

Settling In at the Drive-In – Photo: L. Weikel

Sideways

Today was a day. It started with a flat tire and progressed (regressed?) from there. We all have them, though. Those days when we wake up and feel a vague sense of anticipation – only to have everything go sideways in completely unexpected ways.

The stress only escalated when the ‘donut-spare’ was discovered to be flat as well. We seemed to be in the midst of a comedy of errors. Murphy’s Law seemed to be the operating principle for several hours. Eventually, though (after morning turned into lunchtime and then progressed into a hot and sticky afternoon before we accomplished a darn thing), we discovered that the flat was caused by a nail, thus rendering it easily reparable. Yes! I’ll take it! And call it a small, if significant, win.

Things Got Better

But you know what? We managed to salvage the day and retrieve our attitudes from the mulch pile where they’d been stuffed earlier. Saving the day was accomplished by indulging in the relaxing and nostalgic fun of going to a drive-in movie again. You might recall our foray into this ‘old-timey’ manner of enjoying the summer while in the safe (both outdoor and distanced) company of other people last year.

Re-reading that post and looking at the photos of the animation that danced across the big screen during the intermission between the main feature and the second movie of the evening makes me laugh all over again. I love that the Shankweiler’s Drive-In keeps those dated animated spots.

Honestly, it’s amazing to see how much more risqué and sarcastic a lot of early tv and movie entertainment used to be. Old-fashioned humor is often much more subtle than we’re used to now. In a lot of ways, in spite of the much more overt sexuality, violence, and profanity we see nowadays, sarcasm and naughtiness was every bit as present 50-60 years ago. Viewers just had to work a little harder to ‘get’ it. Or maybe it’s that we don’t expect it to be as odd as it actually was.

It was quite the dance… – Photo: L.Weikel

Grateful

I’m just grateful we were able to salvage the day.

In case you’re wondering, we saw Black Widow. I thought it was good; mostly I enjoyed the dialogue and personalities of some of the characters. I have to admit, though, I find seemingly non-stop ten minute long relentless footage of car chases or shoot-outs or aerial assaults extremely tedious and boring. Just because the special effects are available doesn’t mean we have to be relentlessly bludgeoned over the head with them. Then again, it is a Marvel movie, so it was in character.

The second movie was Cruella. I admittedly had pretty low expectations for it, to be honest. And given our experience with the second movie of the evening last year, we’d made a pact that if it really stank we’d leave early. Given all those doubts, it was pretty good. It had more recognizable faces in it than I was expecting and it gave an interesting backstory to the villain of 101 Dalmations.

All in all, the day turned out tremendously better than it started. Thanks, Tiffany, for the great suggestion!

“The Oldest Drive-In in America” – Photo: L. Weikel

(T-125)

Stating the Obvious

Sometimes I’m a master at this. And you know what? Sometimes it just has to be done.

The ‘obvious’ that I feel needs to be stated at the moment is that this is going to be one hell of an intense week.

Right out of the gate, we know this will be no ordinary week (and let’s face it, how many of them have we honestly experienced since January 20^th, 2017?) because of the horrifying manner in which global tensions are being insanely and irresponsibly ratcheted up on a daily basis. By tweet, no less.

It’s stunning.

Another reason, a corollary to the first, naturally – since so much of our global, national, local, and personal stress is triggered in one way or another by the rash acts emanating from the White House – is that for every threat tweeted out against others, particularly toward those who were rashly and yet deliberately provoked by an assassination of one of their own, another cadre of self-proclaimed avengers is born.

And who will reap the fallout from that vengeance being sought? Almost certainly men, women, and children who do not see it coming. Oh, they may feel it vaguely raising the hackles on their skin when they read about another tweet or hear of yet another taunt or belligerent beating of a national chest. But quite honestly, save for the 9/11 attacks, there’s a profound belief, deep in the core of most Americans’ psyche, that we’re inviolable. That stuff won’t – can’t – happen here.

Photo: runnersworld.com

Our Bubble is Exposed

Given the taunts and threats of 52 sites of strategic or cultural importance being in the crosshairs of our military, I have to ask: Can anyone reading that not imagine how it would feel to have that same threat levied against us? Can anyone reading about anything that’s going on right now not use simple common sense and imagine the rage that we would feel if the bully slapped us like that?

How would we feel if we witnessed the bully slap someone else – perhaps a friend?

How would we feel if we witnessed that very same bully sucker punch a kid who wasn’t exactly our friend? Maybe even someone we whom we also feared – but not as much, since he’s smaller and perhaps a bit more wily (because he has to be clever to make up for his smaller build)?

We’d probably watch in horror and hope we wouldn’t get hit by a stray fist. Or worse.

Recap

To recap why I stated the obvious premise at the start of this post:

1. We have mad, provocative tweeting (and bombs); 2. We are creating new avengers daily, including people who may simply have been observers…before; and 3. We have a full moon and eclipse happening on Friday, plus a slew of planetary aspects that were daunting enough for us to face before the hasty and ill-advised events of the past couple of days.

More on the planetary aspects tomorrow, perhaps.

In the meantime, we must hold those centers. Keep peace in each of our own hearts and homes. It’s what we must do.

(T-691)