Mensa 76 October 2021 Volume XLIX Issue 10

​I received a box from Amazon.com with an angel food cake pan. I did not order the item. I called Amazon customer service, explained that I received a package that did not belong to me, and they asked me if I knew anyone who would send me an angel food cake pan. I did not receive any messages from friends or family that they were sending me this gift. Amazon.com customer service instructed me to keep the angel food cake pan as a gift, free of charge. If anyone sent me this gift, thank you for your kindness. I will need to make a most angelic cake! If it is an anonymous gift, I bless you for your thoughtfulness. Perhaps, since I have been praying for my health and my cat Rig’s health, the angels sent me a message. If my angel food cake pan came from heaven, I shall make the most heavenly cake, savoring every morsel for the angels. Perhaps it was a mistake and Amazon delivered another person’s angel food cake pan to me. Perhaps it was divine intervention. I would like to believe that the angels are watching over me and Rig, with healing and loving light. Rig is feeling better, thanks to all of your prayers that have been answered. Perhaps I should believe in angels, the spirits of my friends and family who wished me well, who pray and think positive thoughts, sending them my way. Perhaps I should acknowledge the angel within myself, my higher self, guiding me along life’s journey towards wholeness. Whomever, or whatever sent me a blessing in the form of an angel food cake pan, bless you, and thank you. And I say for my upcoming birthday, “Let’s all eat cake together!”

​My book Land of Lost Socks is about a child who discovers diversity. To illustrate this concept, I stepped out of my comfort zone, finding diversity in color, shape, and size through Cubism. For the past four days, I studied Cubism, founded by George Braque and Pablo Picasso. I never appreciated Picasso until I attempted Cubism to illustrate diversity within diversity. Each cube represents the individual within a cultural construct, as each sock is unique in the Land of Lost Socks. I modeled the drawing after Picasso’s paintings of people, seeing objects from two perspectives instead of one. Each cube was shaded differently to represent a changing light source, the light from the inside of one’s soul that shines through them, and expands out into the world. The confinement of the sock shape is one’s limitations within the universe created in the mind. One can either be the center of their universe, or part of the whole universe expanding. By breaking the rules of realism, one can venture outside oneself, through a different lens, seeing the beauty in ugliness, the shadow in the light, the integrated whole self. Land of Lost Socks celebrates diversity within diversity, as the source of light within the soul of many socks joining together and shining as one light.

     I am amazed with classical music, which is constructed with complicated chord structures and orchestral arrangements. With classical and orchestral jazz music, multiple musicians read a music score while playing a variety of instruments simultaneously, turning organized chaos into music that is pleasurable to perceive. I am also amazed at paintings that a person made with their vision through their hands and with instruments, such as a paint brush. I am amazed by works of art.
    Why am I not amazed at creative inventions such as the electric washing machine? Whomever invented the washing machine was a creative genius. The inventor conceptualized the washing machine, made plans, or drawings, then figured out how the machine could work with electric current. When a washing machine is plugged into a wall socket, the electricity runs through the electrical chord, brings power into the mechanism, making the machine fill up with water, oscillate, rinse, and empty the soapy water, thus removing dirt from the laundry. The washing machine takes dirty laundry and transforms it into clean clothing, linens, etc. The washing machine is amazing. Yet there are very few museums for washing machines. I have visited the Louvre, Vatican, Uffizi, Getty, Norton Simon, Kimball, and Boston museums of art. Yet I have not visited a museum where people congregate to see different versions of the washing machine including the washboard, or a display of rocks on a river bed that were used to clean laundry. Why do we not sit in front of the washing machine while drinking beverages or eating snacks instead of watching television? The washing machine has a wonderfully steady rhythm that could be compared to the tempo of music. It can remove colored stains and smells on clothes, which music and television cannot do. Perhaps people should wash clothes while sitting near the washing machine, open a bottle of fine wine, and just be entertained by this marvelous invention. Is there a washing machine dance one can learn and perhaps do it in a group of people for a social activity?
     Walking past my washing machine, I do not acknowledge it as much as the copy of an angel painting from the Uffizi museum that is hanging on my wall, nor the Chopin Nocturnes I listen to for relaxation. Perhaps, as a child, I never grew an emotional attachment to a washing machine. I just expected the clothes to be cleaned inside the mashing machine. I do expect to be amazed at a symphony, but certainly not at a laundry mat. With maturity, I have come to appreciate the washing machine. The washing machine is a marvelous invention that we, as a society take for granted. The sound of a washing machine could be music to one’s ears. Instead of supporting the arts, I am supporting the washing machine.

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Today I give myself permission to feel yucky. I remind myself that it is okay to feel blue, sorrowful, or sad. Without sadness, how can one feel joy? There would be nothing to compare joy to if sorrow did not exist. Joy and sorrow, sadness and happiness are not opposing forces, nor are they polar opposites. They are on an emotional spectrum. Joy is the light of blue. Sadness is the shadow of happiness, the balance of yin and yang. In the middle is where they meet, in the gray area, in the balance of emotional hues. Just as the grass may seem greener on the other side, it is merely a different hue from a different view. Perhaps in taking a step outside of one's existence, not in comparison to another person, or oneself, they can view themselves as being whole. Wholeness contains sadness, gladness, and the places between the extremes. Sorrow and happiness meet in the middle to compliment each other, to become one, to become whole. One cannot exist without the other, so why deny them? There is a place of pause in stillness of one’s thoughts, where one can merely exist. I call this place the comfort zone. Somewhere between feeling yucky and feeling happy, between blue and light, one can just be in the comfort zone. Today it is okay to just feel, to exist outside of one's comfort zone. The mind will move itself towards wholeness, passing through the comfort zone, through discomfort, oscillating as a beautiful movement of light. Just for today, embrace the blue shadow, or the illuminated joy, wherever one's psyche is. Today, just be.
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There are days when we forget to practice gratitude. Let us not forget the moments when life flows easily, when we roll with resistance, when we swim with the tide, when life is handed to us. There are times when we can show the most gratitude for the little things in life. Gratitude is an action, a conscious effort in thought. With practice, gratitude can become a part of one's existence.

Today I rested in gratitude. I relished in the physical health, as a result of balancing hard work and rest. The body is amazing; it tells you when it is finished. But the mind can disagree and push oneself beyond a person's capacity until it is worn down, burned out, and exhausted. Today's lesson is to rest in the idea that you have completed enough. You are enough. The mantra of the day is recited as, "I am enough." These are powerful words of wisdom. Let your mind do the thinking, the mouth do the talking, and the body do the walking, flowing with life. There is no need to run on a spinning hamster wheel, fretting about what tomorrow will bring. Tomorrow will come in its own time, in its own way because time will always be there. As we travel from today into tomorrow, let us think of how we can be grateful for each moment as it passes. Just for a second, an instant, we can rest in knowing that all we have is the here and now. Relish in the moment and be grateful for its passing. As the next moment arrives, taste it, feel it, think it. And the next moment, and so on...

           The soul is a concept. There is no scientific proof that a soul exists. However, persons of religious faiths believe that humans, or living carbon based life forms, possess a soul. But what is a soul? One tends to be skeptical of concepts that are far-fetched, which cannot be proven by scientific evidence. However, empirical evidence from individuals reporting encounters with a soul may provide enough proof to substantiate the belief in a soul’s existence. Perhaps, in thinking like a scientist, a few thought provoking questions can be addressed with respect to one’s spiritual beliefs about possessing a soul.
            There are many questions about souls, the first one being, “What is a soul?” According to Merriam Webster dictionary, the definition of soul is “the immaterial essence, animating principle, or actuating cause of an individual life” and “the spiritual principle embodied in human beings, all rational and spiritual beings, or the universe” (n.d.). The soul is not tangible. A person, or work of art is thought to have soul. One cannot bottle and sell soul. Soul is a concept, an idea. One could sell their soul.
            Secondly, do souls exist? Who came up with the idea of soul? Should whoever introduced the concept of soul be believed that a soul exists? Humans have not explained how a soul works when a person is born, or when a person dies. Do souls enter and exit one’s body? If so, does a soul have free will choosing where it goes? If souls have free will to enter and exit bodies, there would be competition for resources. There is a spiritual belief in reincarnation, in which one does not die, but one becomes reborn with its soul, or spirit entering another body. Does a soul have a suitcase like shell to carry its memories, if that soul had a previous life? How do souls travel in and out of bodies to be reborn? Do they float, or fly around like spirits, or ghosts portrayed in movies and television, or is that representation merely a conjured up image from Hollywood for entertainment purposes? How exactly do souls connect with a body, and how are they separated from that body when it expires? When the human body dies, it ceases to exist as a living being. Do souls die?
            Thirdly, where are souls located? Are they inside of the body, or are they integrated as a body and soul connection? Is the soul the mind, the conscious energy that the brain produces with curiosity leading to thought provoking questions including: what is existence of everything? Do souls coexist with material bodies, or are they hanging out above the body looking into the human experience as a higher self, or conscience? Are souls the conscious awareness of one’s human existence? If so, the soul could be also known as the mind, due to its ability to have feelings such as empathy with a moral code to live by. It is possible that a soul is located in thought, within the subatomic particles that are not visible to the human eye. Perhaps a microscope so powerful that it can see beyond subatomic particles of thought could locate a soul. Perhaps soul is beyond comprehension, smaller, or vaster than one can imagine.
            If every living human being, or any living being, possesses a soul, it is possible to run out of souls. The population of the planet has increased significantly since the dawn of time. There would need to be a soul vault of some sort, a waiting place for souls to be connected with living organic tissue. Are souls waiting in the cloud with iTunes music and Word documents, waiting to be connected with a living body? If there were one soul connected with each living body, there would eventually be no souls left, thus making a percentage of the population born without a soul, which could explain why individuals can appear to have no soul. Another concept to consider is that due to supply and demand, souls may need to be split, to accommodate the increasing size of the population. Sharing a soul with another being can explain the concept of a soul mate. Thus one would share a soul with another living being in however souls can be divided. If souls are divided, are there equal portions, or does one being get more soul than the other? If souls are split, are there smaller souls, or do souls come in different sizes? This brings up the question of how large a soul is, or how to measure a soul.
            Perhaps a soul is something that exists in the mind of curious human beings, who are not satisfied with the idea that when their human body dies, that is the end of their life. We as humans, have the need to feel eternal. The concept of soul gives a person validation, knowing that they will never truly die, that their soul will exist for eternity. If there are eternal souls, where are they? If we in fact, as human beings, possess a soul, where do souls come from? Are they manufactured, or have they existed before humans inhabited the planet earth? This is a question that proposes another question, “Which came first, the chicken or the egg?” (Fabry, 2016). Which came first, the body, or the soul?
            After pondering the existence of soul, there are no conclusions, only more unanswered questions. Whether one believes in souls is an individual’s choice, as an act of free will to just believe. Perhaps the choice to believe in a soul while questioning one’s existence through the concept of soul is enough to satisfy human curiosity.

References
Merriam-Webster (n.d.). Soul. In Merriam-Webster.com dictionary. Retrieved from https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/soul
 
Fabry, M. (2016). Now You Know: Which Came First, the Chicken or the Egg? Retrieved from https://time.com/4475048/which-came-first-chicken-egg/#:~:text=It%20was%20Plutarch%20who%20gave,you%20suppose%20to%20be%20a