Today has been a fairly good day - as the list shows, my books came today! I sat outside, under the big oak next to the house, looking through them as the cats congregated around me. Just call me the King of the Lost Toys. (Anyone out there remember the original Rudolph and the little elf who really wanted to be a dentist?)

I finally chose Anne Lamott's book to begin with - I think it was her telling of her plane trip from hell: after finally boarding the plane after an insanely long wait; the plane travelled 500 feet before stopping again to let two passengers off. Her words: "...FAA regulations required that security go over all of the stowed luggage to make sure these two people had not accidentally left behind their pipe bombs..." That and comparing the woman sitting next to her to the Martians in Mars Attacks! just struck me as very funny. Ack ack ack!!

Hmmm...news just came on that says that female doctor who discovered a lump in her breast while on duty in Antarctica is finally coming home sometime soon. She's been there all summer.

I find myself drawn to the cover of The Art of Happiness. It is a portrait of His Holiness, the Dalai Lama (Good! I spelled it right that time - earlier I spelled it Dalia...all I could think of were flowers everywhere...). I don't know what it is. All I know is that when I look at the photo, I feel peace, joy and centeredness emanating from it - as if he himself is doing it.

He may well be, for all I know.

Many tribes and peoples over the years have refused to have their photos taken because they felt that the camera would steal their souls (unless you remember that dialogue from Crocodile Dundee with the Aboriginal man: "Don't take the picture." "Why? Do you think it will steal your soul?" "No. The lens cap is on."). What if someone willingly did this - if only a little bit of himself? Haven't many holy relics over the years I also seem to remember that one of the most revered things a Tibetan could have would be a photo of the Dalai Lama...o.k., o.k, I'm getting really tired - I lost my train of thought.

What I was trying to get at was this: Haven't many of the holy relics responsible over the years for miracles been portraits and statues of saints; Mary, Jesus or some such? Couldn't it be possible for a person to have such a degree of spiritual...energy; power, whatever...to imbue images with a bit of the essence of said person?

I think so.

I'm going to bed...before my typing gets any more incoherent.