December 25, 2010 - Woke up to a crunch in the darkness! My eyeglasses! I had put my eyeglasses on my stomach while reading last night and fell asleep. The glasses slipped off and down my husband's side of the bed onto the floor. He had gotten up in the dark of early morning to go do something. Oops! The frame was broken, but the glass lenses were still intact. Merry Christmas!
The eyeglasses completed their brief life of remarkable synchronicity, which had begun four months earlier, when I dropped my new prescription off at the local optical shop, Ferocious Eyes. Then I forgot about it until a day or two later, when I received a strange reminder, which I logged into my journal...
August 25, 2010 – After three days of rain the weather started to clear this evening. The western sky above the Coventry Walmart parking lot was aglow with pink cotton candy clouds - a little girl’s dream. Driving home after the sunset, we turned East off Route 2 onto Division Street, with the full moon rising before us. The moon was peeking through an eye-shaped slit in the cloud cover. The slit itself glowed with a thin veil of moonlit stratus. Wild looking! I’d never seen anything like it, and pointed the spectacle out to my daughter and her friend. Did anyone else notice it besides us three?
August 26, 2010 – Woken by my odd intuition sometime in the middle of the night, I stepped out on to the landing and descended halfway down the stairs to view the moon centered under the arch of what Carolyn called an eyebrow window – a sort of palladium window. The moonbeam filtered in from behind the trees, through the window, and the stair railing, to land on the floor in front of the downstairs washroom door, forming two glowing cat’s eyes in the darkness.
The August 26 entry in July-August issue of Daily Word seemed to give
credence to these mysterious signs: “With spiritual eyes, I see infinite possibilities, and I make each choice with confidence and peace.” My mind finally made the bizarre connection with the eye glass order I hadn't yet completed at Ferocious Eyes... along with something else – Progressivism.
Born with near-sightedness, and unable to read the blackboard in first grade, I got my first pair of glasses - pink cat-style frames with rhinestones in the corners. Now at the age of 52, with my eyesight getting progressively worse, I was facing the inevitable decision of investing a small fortune in Progressive Power Lenses – no-line bifocals.
Progressive is an interesting term that we hear more often nowadays. It means “continuing by successive steps,” and not necessarily in the right direction, mind you. In medicine, the word means, “becoming more severe or spreading to other parts,” as in progressive cancer. So, why is it that left leaning politicians wear the “progressive” badge with such pride? You’ve got to wonder.
Unable to put off the inevitable any longer, I returned to Ferocious Eyes and picked out a reasonably-priced Coach frame to go with the lenses.... Then four months later, early on Christmas morning, the glass frames were broken. Thank you, Santa.
Considering this as a metaphor for the trodden framework of the U.S. Constitution, I thought about the yellow Don’t Tread on Me t-shirt, wrapped up to give to our nephew for Christmas. Then, in a synchronistic exchange later that morning, my husband received a special gift from his sister – an autographed copy of Glenn Back’s new book, Broke. Ha!
The inside jacket cover of Broke summarizes the symptoms of a failing nation: “our country is financially broke, but that’s just a side effect of our broken spirit, our broken faith in government, the broken promises by our leaders, and a broken political system that has centralized power at the expense of individual rights.” The following paragraph states the diagnosis as a “cancer of ‘progressivism.’” Then the book takes us back and history and begins with the Fall of Rome.
The prognosis relies on individuals taking greater responsibility for their own financial wellbeing by using common sense and focusing on preventative measures. Too many people have lost sight of the meaning of discretionary planning, spending, saving, investing, and accountability.
Sight. These thoughts prompted me to revisit earlier journal entries.
January 4, 2010 – Sitting on our stairs, beneath the eye brow window today, I wondered at what time in the Spring would the sun be framed in the eye of the window. There and then I renamed it the God’s Eye window. Then late tonight, unable to sleep and just lying in bed thinking, I decided to get up and go write in my journal. Kicking on my slippers, I shuffled out to the head of the stairs. Looking down into the darkness, I noticed a short strip of moonlight streaking down the middle of the stairs. I descended midway and lay down upon the stairs, with my face in the moonbeam, looking up at the window. The full moon rested dead center in the eye window.
Six months later, another journal entry references the window.
July 30, 2010 - Awoken by moonlight entering the bedroom at 2:50 am. Got out of bed to visit the God’s Eye window that looks down upon our stairway. The moonbeam shining in through the window cast its light upon the floor directly in front of the bottom step. Rectangular in shape, it looked like a sewer grate, with bars of light shining up from down below...
So what do I imagine putting these signs all together? How do these images connect?
#1 Eyes seeing in the darkness, looking in toward the toilet.
Waste going down the drain?
#2 A thin streak of light running down the stairs.
Like water trickling down a waterfall.
The vital flow of money?
#3 A sewer grate with light shining up from beneath.
Is somebody trying to flash a light on the problem,
and show us where the money has been going?
Broke does an admirable job of illuminating the problems with graphs and charts - pictures worth a thousand words and billions of dollars. The study is a thorough physical health assessment (PHA) of the “cancer”, complete with biometric measures. It's time to take personal responsibility.
One concluding entry...
December 28, 2010 – While celebrating Christmas at Grumpa’s, we watched him unwrap a book. The title was Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption. Clearly, this is a time for action. Driving home from his house, we passed a billboard with two female eyes and the slogan Advert Eyes here. No, no, no, keep your eyes on the road ahead.
P.S. - Due to warranty, the frames were replaced for $10. Thanks to Ferocious Eyes.
CLICK on the word broke highlighted above
to open the door to a quick and relevant history lesson.
Also don't miss the Manhattan Photo Walk around the financial center.
Webster's Brain Boosting Vocab Workout - Look up the words highlighted in blue - palladium, credence, and progressive
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