Books by PM De Angelis Facebook page

I started this Facebook page back in 2012, but did not keep it updated at that time due to other activities. I have just relaunched it after a three-year hiatus. During that time, I published three poetry collections: Remnants of the Spirit World; One Hundred Haikus for Modern Workplaces; and Quantum Bloom, and am currently working on a new volume of poetry as well as a short story collection. Please check out the Facebook page; I promise to be a more active contributor than I have been previously. 

https://www.facebook.com/BooksbyPMDeAngelis/

American embassy employees try Norwegian Christmas food

Ok, so the reactions were probably staged, but the video is amusing, as are the comments afterward. Some Norwegian Christmas food is an acquired taste, and varies according to what part of the country you live in. The Christmas food I've tried and liked the best is pork ribs and meat-cakes (ribbe og medisterkaker) and cured lamb (pinnekjøtt). I've tried lutefisk and rakfisk but they are not favorites although I will eat them if served. I doubt that I will eat a sheep's head (smalahove) any time soon.

Lily et le Bonhomme de neige (Lily and the Snowman)

A very sweet little video by

Cinémas Cineplex!

I know you'll like it as much as I do.

Reflections on the afterlife

There are dreams that you remember long after you’ve had them. They leave an intense feeling in their wake, the kind of feeling that you can carry with you for the entire day after you’ve gotten up. I’ve had such dreams, albeit not many, but those I’ve had often have to do with being visited by loved ones who have died. Both my father and my mother have visited me in dreams, talked to me without my responding, or we have had short conversations. I don’t always remember the specific words we’ve said to one another, but I do know that they are very real dreams and that the messages are not garbled or nonsense. Recently, I’ve had several such dreams, and it got me to thinking about the afterlife. I am starting to really believe in an afterlife, and I have come to that belief after many years of skepticism about its existence. I grew up with the idea that life continues on after death, and I’ve wanted the afterlife to exist. According to my religion, it does exist in the form of heaven, purgatory and hell. It’s been depicted in countless poems, novels and films, all of which have made a huge impression on me. But my skepticism kept me from fully embracing a belief in it. That has changed. It also changed because I began to seriously question the idea of love ceasing at death. How can it be that we work so hard to learn to love in this life and that we love the people we love, only to see that love die with death? It makes no intellectual sense to me, and I tend to reject arguments that make no sense to me. So that too has pushed me to embrace a belief in the afterlife, a place where love lives on, because that makes sense to me.

I searched for afterlife on the internet, and found this description of it on Wikipedia-- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Afterlife

In philosophy, religion, mythology, and fiction, the afterlife (also referred to as life after death or the Hereafter) is the concept of a realm, or the realm itself (whether physical or transcendental), in which an essential part of an individual's identity or consciousness continues to exist after the death of the body in the individual's lifetime. According to various ideas about the afterlife, the essential aspect of the individual that lives on after death may be some partial element, or the entire soul or spirit, of an individual, which carries with it and confers personal identity. Belief in an afterlife, which may be naturalistic or supernatural, is in contrast to the belief in oblivion after death.

This description does not mention dreams at all. Suppose that dreams are part of the afterlife, or at least a portal between this world and the afterlife, through which deceased loved ones can talk to us. Perhaps there are other portals as well. I’m not actively looking for them, but perhaps deceased loved ones need to get in touch with us (albeit infrequently) for one reason or another—to give us a message, to reassure us, or to guide us. Nearly every such dream I’ve had has had to do with something I’ve been wondering about, and I’ve gotten the answer, or at least some semblance of one, in the dream. My mother telling me that she was fine, my visit to the beautiful house where she was living, or telling me that she was worried about someone in the family, or my father telling me that something I had written was good and worth sharing. I trust these dreams; I never wake from them thinking that they are nonsense. I believe dreams are a way of being able to have contact with those we loved who are now dead, or a way for them to contact us if they know that we subconsciously have a desire to talk to them. Now at Christmastime, it makes more literal sense to me when I read the passages describing how Joseph was visited by an angel in his dreams that told him to take Mary and Jesus and leave Bethlehem because Herod was going to search for Jesus to destroy Him, and that they should flee to Egypt. Joseph took his family and fled to Egypt because he trusted the dream and the message.  

It is easy to pay lip service to the ideas of an afterlife, of heaven, hell, purgatory, of resurrection of the body, life everlasting—all the things we say we believe in as Christians. I wonder how many of us really ponder the meaning that lies behind what we profess to believe in. I know most people want these things to exist, but that is different from knowing that they actually do. Most people, myself included, take it on faith that they do exist. But the scientist part of me has always been looking for proof throughout most of my life, for clues, for answers, and I have come to believe that the visitation dreams are evidence that the afterlife exists.

December reflections

We are midway through December and nearly at the end of another year. We are also more than halfway through Advent—a time before Christmas in the Christian church that lends itself to reflection. I haven’t written much on this blog lately; I’ve been very busy, but also unsure of what to write about. This year passed by rather quickly, and the tone of the year was influenced in many ways by my brother’s death from cardiac disease in February. When I received the news of his death, I realized yet again that there is no escape from life’s sadness and suffering. I knew that already when I was twelve years old and my father had his first of several heart attacks. He survived the first one, and was progressively weaker by the time he had his second one. I felt then that life was unpredictable, unsafe, and often dark. I struggled to find meaning in life. Was it only about suffering and death? I was a churchgoer but was at a loss to know what it was I really believed in or sometimes even why I went to church. It was not until a good friend of mine helped me to find what I could personally relate to in my faith that I began to understand what it was I professed to believe in. When I understood and believed that God cares about me personally—that is when my relationship to my faith changed. Many years later, my conclusion is that it is love, and love alone, that transforms people, changes lives, allows for forgiveness and acceptance, offers hope and gives us a safe haven during life’s storms. It gives us something to believe in and to act on. I am not talking about romantic love, although that is definitely a part of love. I am talking about the love described in 1 Corinthians 13, the passage about love that is read at countless weddings:

If I speak in the tongues of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing.

Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. For we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when completeness comes, what is in part disappears. When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me. For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.

And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.        

These words were first uttered/written many centuries ago, and speak for themselves. They have shown themselves to be quite prescient in my life. It is clear to me after many years in academia, that higher education does not always enlighten its recipients or make them better people. Unfortunately, there are a number of self-centered people with PhDs and MDs who are mostly concerned with titles, incomes, amount of grant support, and the number of high impact-factor publications a person has. There is no direct correlation between higher education and good behavior, unfortunately for the world. It doesn’t matter much in our current world that a person treats his or her students well, gets along with his or her colleagues, or finds happiness in playing a supportive role for others. These characteristics are simply not valued in the same way as is being a cash cow for your organization. As long as a person brings in research money, bad behavior, bullying and envy are tolerated. So yes, knowledge will pass away, as will titles and honors. Aging takes care of that--the top person of the moment in any profession will lose that status, replaced by someone younger and smarter—and the cycle continues, as well it should. If all a person has had is his or her job, and he or she has not treated colleagues, friends or family well, then he or she can end up bitter and lonely in old age. Or frantic, desperate and borderline hysterical, because no one remembers the ‘important’ contributions he or she has made. You would think that people gain perspective as they age; some do, but you’d be surprised at the stories I’ve heard about former professors (men and women both) in their eighties and nineties arguing about who was the better scientist, or convinced that their contributions to the field were those that revolutionized it. ‘You’re only as good as your last publication’—is a common expression in academia. The problem begins when a person begins to believe the hype he or she hears about himself or herself—that one is irreplaceable, brilliant, a genius, the best in the field. It’s nice to receive the accolades. Far better to have reflected on what is really important in life, and to have treated your colleagues and students in a way that reflects the kind of love that 1 Corinthians 13 talks about--patience, kindness, lack of envy, lack of boasting, and humility. How many former top professors will mentor and encourage their one or two brilliant students without envy, and how many of them will keep those students down so as to hinder competition? How many of them will actually let go of their control over their students and let them fly and shine? I’ve seen a few of the latter, and many of the former.

What have I learned this year from my reflections upon the good and bad things that have happened? My brother’s death was a real shock to me (and to my sister), and permeated our lives during this past year. The complicated situations surrounding his death introduced me to a dark world where nothing was as it seemed. My brother was a master at pretending that everything was ok, when in fact it was not during the last two years of his life. He opened the window into his life a crack and let me see some of what he had to deal with (financial problems, his being the primary parent), but he shut it just as quickly, either so I would not worry, or so that he would not lose face. Either way, he was afraid that he would be judged, because he himself was often quick to judge. He knew that I would not judge him; perhaps that made it harder for him to open up, because it would have meant breaking down his own walls. I wish he had, because I loved him and however difficult his life had become, I would always have loved him. He, like many others in our materialistic society, did not want to admit that money, fame, a city job, an apartment in a tony Manhattan suburb, or materialistic things generally, were not the answers to happiness in life. But it’s hard in our society to let go of that way of thinking. He was on the verge of changing his life when he died. Sometimes you’ve got to just toss in the towel and start over in a simpler world, where love is the foundation, and not materialism. There were many people who got in touch with me after his death to tell me how he had affected their lives, especially when we all were younger—how he helped others, was a good listener, took a back seat to others—all things I knew and loved about him. My brother was my good friend when we were younger; we spent many a Saturday evening in Manhattan, meeting friends, dancing and having a good time together. My friends knew and liked him, and his friends knew and liked me. Despite having the Atlantic Ocean between us after I moved abroad, we always got together in Manhattan when I visited each year in the summertime. He would use his company expense account and treat me to lunch at one or another restaurant that he had discovered, and we would walk around lower Manhattan for a few hours and just talk. I am grateful for those memories.

I am grateful for so many other things this past year—my closest friends who were and are always there for me, in good times and in bad. I am grateful for having been a part of a joyous May wedding (the daughter of my close friend got married) that balanced out the sadness of my brother’s death. I am grateful for having met a lawyer (the father of my good friend) who helped me with a specific legal situation related to my brother’s death; I am forever grateful to my friend for having arranged that meeting with her father. I am grateful to my husband for always being there for me, without a lot of fanfare and fuss. I am grateful to my workplace that approved and financed a yearlong leadership course from which I learned a lot—a course that changed my perspective about leadership, about my own leadership qualities, and about the importance of real dialog and communication in the workplace. It seems strange to say it, but often out of sadness come many good things—reminders as it were that there is a reason to continue to hope and to believe.  There is good in the world, and real love does exist. 

A beautiful song by Highasakite

I heard this song, Lover, Where Do You Live? the other night on one or another music awards show. The Norwegian group, Highasakite, performed it live, and hearing it sung that way sent chills down my spine. This is the YouTube version and it's pretty awesome. It's an intriguing song, one that grows on you more and more each time you hear it. I'm including the lyrics as well.

Lover, where do you live?
In the skies, in the clouds, in the ocean?

I learned a lesson 'bout bad ideas,
We're really out in the middle of it now,

And if I ever see you again my love
All I'm ever gonna do
is send shivers down that spine of yours

It would be nice to come home, I guess..
To a couch, and a stove, and a backyard..

Lover, where do you live?
In the skies, in the clouds, in the ocean?

And if I ever see you again my love
All I'm ever gonna do is send shivers down
that spine of yours

And if I ever see you again my love
All I'm ever gonna do is send shivers down
that spine of yours

All I'm ever gonna do is send shivers down
that spine of yours

If I ever see you again my love
If I ever see you again my love
If I ever see you again my love

Lover, where do you live?
In the skies, in the clouds, in the ocean?

Thanksgiving quotes

Let us remember that, as much has been given us, much will be expected from us, and that true homage comes from the heart as well as from the lips, and shows itself in deeds.

--Theodore Roosevelt

Gratitude is the sign of noble souls.

--Aesop

All that we behold is full of blessings.

--William Wordsworth

Gratitude can transform common days into thanksgivings, turn routine jobs into joy, and change ordinary opportunities into blessings.

--William Arthur Ward

If you are really thankful, what do you do? You share.

--W. Clement Stone

Be thankful for what you have; you'll end up having more. If you concentrate on what you don't have, you will never, ever have enough.

--Oprah Winfrey

I am grateful for what I am and have. My thanksgiving is perpetual.

--Henry David Thoreau

For each new morning with its light,

For rest and shelter of the night,

For health and food, for love and friends,

For everything Thy goodness sends.

--Ralph Waldo Emerson

Dear Lord; we beg but one boon more:

Peace in the hearts of all men living,

Peace in the whole world this Thanksgiving.

--Joseph Auslander

God has two dwellings; one in heaven, and the other in a meek and thankful heart.

--Izaak Walton

Forever on Thanksgiving Day

The heart will find the pathway home.

--Wilbur D. Nesbit

Give thanks for unknown blessings already on their way.

--Native American Saying

Waxwings chatting and taking a break in their travels

My last post was a photo of what I believe are Bohemian waxwings (sidensvanser in Norwegian) sitting together happily in the tree across the street from where we live. After listening to them 'chatting' together, I am pretty sure that they are Bohemian waxwings because they have a high trill sirrr as mentioned on the link in my previous post. You can hear that in this short video. They are migratory birds, so I wonder where they came from and where they were off to. In any case, they decided to take a short break from their trip in this tree, and it was just so enjoyable to listen to them.

Birds having a pow-wow

A gray day today, and rather chilly, but that didn't stop the birds from having a pow-wow in the tree that you can see from our kitchen window. I used my telephoto lens to get a close-up view of this important meeting. If you look carefully at the topmost branch on the left, you'll see a bird leaning down toward the other birds, almost as though he had something to say or as though he was listening to the others. As I've said so many times before, birds rule. I have no idea why they do what they do, just that I enjoy watching them do what it is they want to do. Why they were all gathered in this one tree is a mystery; perhaps they were planning their migratory activities, if indeed these are migratory birds. I'm not sure what kind of birds they are either. What I do know was that they were chirping and singing and having a great time.

After a few days of searching the web for what kind of birds they might be, I think these are Bohemian waxwings (sidensvanser in Norwegian). You can check out this link for more information on them: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bohemian_waxwing   They are migratory birds. 

Paris in my mind and heart

A carpet of leaves

Autumn is upon us; one might expect it to be chilly here in Oslo, but it's not. The temperatures have been fairly mild for the past few weeks. Today's temperature approached 60 degrees Fahrenheit during mid-afternoon; I can't remember when it's been so warm in November. Last year around this time we were dealing with icy rain and near-freezing temperatures. A cold winter is predicted for Norway, but we'll have to wait and see. Meanwhile, the tree outside our bedroom window has not shed its leaves, although many other trees have. I went for a walk in St. Hanshaugen Park this afternoon, and the paths were covered with leaves, as were the lawns and hillsides. Very pretty--the carpets of leaves.

a view of the Oslo fjord from the top of the hill in St. Hanshaugen Park

An amazing voice

It's impossible not to be moved by this song. She has an amazing voice and she sings with so much emotion.

Halloween 2015 in Oslo

Carved pumpkin, check. Flashing skulls with different colored lights hanging in the kitchen window, check. Candy for the kids, check. Halloween decorations here and there in the house, check. Each year at Halloween, I feel like Linus in Peanuts waiting for the Great Pumpkin to appear. I wait for the kids in the neighborhood to ring the doorbell for candy. We actually got a few children tonight made up as zombies and witches, and that makes my Halloween. But some years there have been none. Nothing to do about it, except hope that next year will be better. I've written about Halloween before, about how I began to celebrate it here in Oslo and how much I look forward to it: http://paulamdeangelis.blogspot.no/2011/10/before-and-after-pumpkin-shots.html.

Halloween is now widely-celebrated in Norway; most people seem to enjoy it but there are always those who are against it. The pettiness of a few does not destroy the spirit and enthusiasm of the many, thankfully. A number of stores sell costumes, wigs, hats, candy, candles and all sorts of Halloween decorations and accessories. Nille is one of those stores; it's right down the road from where we live. I can't tell you how many times I've been there to buy one or another Halloween item during this past week. The candle holders shown in the photos were purchased at Nille. A far cry from 1997 when I bought most of the items I needed for a Halloween party in New York on one of my visits. I had to plan well in advance to make that party happen, but it did and it was successful. The convenience of being able to buy what I need here now is something I am quite happy about. 

Wishing you all a Happy Halloween!

Nille and its Halloween displays

Zombie hand candle holder

Spider candle holder

Birds have their favorite perches

If you look out our kitchen window (facing east), you will see a tall tree that is popular with the birds in our neighborhood--crows, magpies, thrushes, starlings, and sparrows. They each seem to have their favorite perch spots.This fellow enjoys his bird's eye view of our Oslo neighborhood. For the past few evenings, he has found his favorite perch high up in this tree in order to calmly survey the world around him. I managed to snap a few shots of him just sitting there watching the world go by.

The colors of autumn sunrises

I took some sunrise photos during this past week, and here are the results--a truly spectacular blending of light and colors. There is nothing quite like an autumn sunrise to inspire the soul.

Finnair ad: baby reindeer trying to find his way home

The holidays are coming, and this wonderful little ad for Finnair is a touching reminder of the joy of coming home to loved ones and the meaning of family.

You can read more about this little video here: http://theinspirationroom.com/daily/2005/finnair-reindeer-poro/

My WriteOn by Kindle author page

Check out my WriteOn by Kindle author page--https://writeon.amazon.com/search?headerQuery=paula%20mary%20de%20angelis&ref_=ign_d_tn_sr_ac

Two short stories so far, and more to come........

My second short story--An Unusual Offer--posted on WriteOn by Kindle

My second short story, just posted to WriteOn by Kindle. You may be getting the idea that I'm putting together a collection of short stories. You'd be right. I'm doing just that--a collection that I'm planning to entitle Survivable Losses. I'm on my way..........

http://tinyurl.com/o5sgnav

October morning and night skies

Some recent beautiful October morning and night skies--all of them remind me that we live on a planet that is part of an incredible universe. Imagine how the skies might look if we were standing on a planet further from the sun........

Music that leads to other music...............

Listening to Decktonic's music at the beginning of the TriClub2015 video somehow reminded me of music that my sister and I used to listen to when we were teenagers--the song Cosmic Messenger by Jean-Luc Ponty. Here it is.......

Drone view video of the TriClub 2015 triathlon

Just thought you might like to see a video created by the woman who has done the graphic design for most of the covers of my books. Her name is Paloma and this is her first drone view video. Give it a look! It's beautiful, and I love the accompanying music!

My first short story--The Kiss--posted on WriteOn by Kindle

I mentioned in my last post that I would be sharing some short stories that I have written, with you. I have chosen to start publishing them on WriteOn by Kindle, since I am both a Kindle fan and a Kindle author (and a fan of Amazon that makes this all possible). You can find the first short story I've posted, entitled The Kiss, here at this link:

http://tinyurl.com/o33sv5b

Enjoy, and if any of you would like to comment, please do so!

New ventures and new roads

It is often said that ‘truth is stranger than fiction’, and the events of the past seven months in my life can truly attest to that. I will not go into details except to say that much of what has transpired is connected to my brother’s untimely death in February. I have decided to turn reality into fiction and see where that takes me. My premise is that it is better to write it down than to hold onto the swirling and sometimes negative emotions that will only burden my heart and soul for the rest of my life. So I am embarking on yet another literary venture. My friends who know me, know what has transpired, and I am sure that they will support this endeavor rather than the (seemingly insurmountable) alternatives that will only cause more problems.

I continue to write this blog and to share my poetry and photography with you, as well as my reflections about modern workplaces and workplace behavior. For some of my readers, it may seem that I cannot decide on one focused theme for the blog. That may be so. This is not a fashion blog, or a movie blog, a science blog or even a workplace blog; it is a daily life blog. I share my life as I experience it, a New Yorker in a foreign culture. Norwegian culture (ways of looking at and doing things in personal and work arenas) remains somewhat foreign to me even after twenty-five years of living and working here. Norway has changed a lot in that time, as has the USA. Workplaces are now global arenas that have their unwritten rules based on the culture in which they do business, but are also the product of modern workplace theories that are adopted worldwide. In that vein, I had to laugh yesterday when my husband sent me an email with information about a new course offered by the university here to employees who are new to Norway and who are struggling to understand their workplaces. The course will describe what it means to work in Norway with Norwegians, and will teach attendees about ‘both the formal code of conduct and the unwritten rules of working in Norway. The Norwegian workplace culture has important elements that are not found in most other western countries, and this may cause misunderstandings and frustration’ (direct citation from the course offering). You could have taken the words right out of my mouth. I could have used this kind of course twenty-five years ago. But since there were few to no foreigners in my workplace at that time, this type of course would never have seen the light of day. I struggled along on my own, with explanations for certain aspects of Norwegian workplace culture from my husband and some caring colleagues who have remained good friends. Along the way I developed a thick skin and a sense of humor, as well as the ability to let go of irritations. Had I not, I would have become frustrated and angry and stayed that way; American and Norwegian workplace cultures are that different. It is no accident that many of the new (young) foreign employees that start working in my workplace find their way to my office after a few months. Many of them knock on my door to ask me about some procedure that they’ve heard I know a lot about, but what they really want is to chat and to release some of their frustrations about what they experience here. We talk and sometimes I offer advice, but mostly I listen. Because I’ve been there, and I survived. My office mate (a non-Norwegian) calls me his role model. I understand what he means.

Back to my blog. I’ve decided that in some future posts, I will be sharing some of the short stories that I’ve been working on, with you. It will be interesting to find out what you think and feel about them. It may be a new road for the blog, and I’ll be interested to see where it takes me.

Tonight's full moon

Supermoon lunar eclipse 28 September 2015

I set my alarm early this morning (at 3:45 am) so that I could watch the supermoon lunar eclipse here in Oslo Norway. The last time there was a lunar eclipse of a supermoon was in 1982; the next one won't happen until 2033. Strange to think about that--where will we be in 2033? So it was worth the loss of sleep to get up early to witness this beautiful and rare event. Night photography is not easy, as I've talked about before. While I took a lot of photos, only a few were good, and even they were not as optimal as I'd hoped they'd be. But I hope you enjoy them.

taken at 3:56 am

taken at 4:20 am

taken at 4:52 am 

Some of Ray Bradbury's reflections about life

The National Endowment for the Arts posted these quotes by Ray Bradbury on their blog the other day (25 September 2015). I thought the quotes were very good, and wanted to share them with you. Here they are reprinted from their blog http://arts.gov/art-works/2015/our-top-ten-ray-bradbury-quotes. 

----------------------------------------------------

Stuff your eyes with wonder,’ he said, ‘live as if you'd drop dead in ten seconds. See the world. It's more fantastic than any dream made or paid for in factories.

We are cups, constantly and quietly being filled. The trick is, knowing how to tip ourselves over and let the beautiful stuff out.

Don't think. Thinking is the enemy of creativity. It's self-conscious, and anything self-conscious is lousy. You can't try to do things. You simply must do things.

We are an impossibility in an impossible universe.

I spent three days a week for ten years educating myself in the public library, and it's better than college. People should educate themselves - you can get a complete education for no money. At the end of ten years, I had read every book in the library and I'd written a thousand stories.

There are worse crimes than burning books. One of them is not reading them.

I'm never going to go to Mars, but I've helped inspire, thank goodness, the people who built the rockets and sent our photographic equipment off to Mars.

Don’t worry about things. Don’t push. Just do your work and you’ll survive. The important thing is to have a ball, to be joyful, to be loving and to be explosive. Out of that comes everything and you grow.

I don’t believe in being serious about anything. I think life is too serious to be taken seriously.

You've been put on the world to love the act of being alive.

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A very good poem--The Second Coming--by William Butler Yeats

The Second Coming



Turning and turning in the widening gyre

The falcon cannot hear the falconer;

Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;

Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,

The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere

The ceremony of innocence is drowned;

The best lack all conviction, while the worst

Are full of passionate intensity.




Surely some revelation is at hand;

Surely the Second Coming is at hand.

The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out

When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi

Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert

A shape with lion body and the head of a man,

A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,

Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it

Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.

The darkness drops again; but now I know

That twenty centuries of stony sleep

Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,

And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,

Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?

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Why is it that I think that this poem by William Butler Yeats becomes more relevant for our world for each year that passes? Is it because I am getting older that I am beginning to really see the anarchy in the world and the blatant disregard for the life around us--be it human, animal, bird, fish or insect? We are polluting our planet with pesticides that are killing the bees and butterflies. Without the bees to pollinate crops, there will be fewer types of the fruits and vegetables that we at present take for granted. It will affect food production on a global scale. This is one problem. Another problem is that these pesticides are finding their way into our drinking water, and they will cause more damage to all life that way in the form of increased cancer risk and other health problems. We don't need these chemicals inside us, nor do animals, fish, birds and insects. The things we do in this life and the way we behave toward the life around us affect the lives around us. We are not the inhabitants of an island; everything we do and say has an effect on the life around us. We need to wake up and really 'see' that fact. If we see it, then it becomes a no-brainer that we need to take care of the life on this planet, for ourselves and future generations. I am glad to see that there are movements in society that are focusing on locally-grown organic farm products. I am also glad to see that many people want to know where their meat and produce come from and how they were treated before they were made available to consumers. Every bit of knowledge helps us to grow and to evolve into a society that is not preoccupied with making huge profits at the expense of our planet's future. Because we need to ask ourselves, as Yeats did--what is the beast that is moving slowly toward Bethlehem to be born? And what will happen to mankind when it is born?

If you need a good laugh today

This was my laugh for the day--it's a great little video (posted by Mark Muldoon on YouTube) of a male cockatoo that loves Elvis, and the female by his side that doesn't! And she isn't too interested in the male either!

Anxiety and dread in Fear the Walking Dead

I’m already hooked on the new TV series--Fear the Walking Dead (the prequel to The Walking Dead)—after only two episodes. I’ve read that there will be six episodes this season; it’s already been renewed for a second season. Unlike The Walking Dead that takes place in Georgia, Fear the Walking Dead takes place in Los Angeles and depicts how the apocalyptic zombie plague got its start as a flu-like virus that spreads rapidly together with the anxiety and paranoia that accompany it. Anxiety and a sense of mounting dread pervade the show; it’s not hard to imagine similar feelings if a disease like the plague spread rapidly throughout a large city and wreaked havoc on its populace. How might we react to such a plague, that the authorities would not be able to fight effectively or adequately inform the public about? How would we protect ourselves and our families? How would we survive, and what would we prioritize?

We know what’s coming in the next few episodes, since this is a prequel; we know from The Walking Dead that it’s going to be impossible to stop the zombie apocalypse. A huge city like Los Angeles and a large high school are not the first places we might expect to be creepy in broad daylight, but in this show, they are downright creepy. You half expect a zombie to appear around every corner in the high school or in the dark passageways under the highway overpasses that abound in the city. An abandoned church also ups the ‘creep you out’ factor; not surprising since this is where the first episode begins—in an abandoned church frequented by drug addicts who squat there. When Nick (played by Frank Dillane) awakes from his drug-induced sleep, his girlfriend Gloria is no longer beside him and he goes looking for her inside the church. He hears screams and goes toward those sounds, thinking that Gloria might be in trouble. When he finds her, she is no longer the girlfriend he used to know, and what he sees shocks him into wanting to get sober. He hightails it out of the church and ends up in the hospital after getting hit by a car. When his hospital roommate dies (surely an eventual zombie, implied but not shown), he escapes the hospital amid all the commotion and gets in touch with his friend and drug dealer, Calvin, who sold him the drugs. He thinks maybe he has been given drugs laced with PCP. Russell doesn’t like what he hears, and decides to take Nick out because he is afraid he will go to the police. But in a twist of fate, Calvin ends up dead, shot by his own gun, and Nick ends up alive. In the meantime, Nick's mother and her boyfriend (Madison and Travis, played by Kim Dickens and Cliff Davis, respectively) are searching for him; they have gone to the church to see for themselves what it is he has described to them (Gloria’s murderous rampage), and when they see a large pool of blood on the floor of the church, they understand that something bad has happened there. They drive around the seedier sections of the city trying to find Nick, and eventually they do, at a tunnel entrance to a storm drain. When he tells them that he has killed Calvin, they go to the scene of the shooting, only to find that Calvin is gone. What ensues convinces them that something horrific is afoot, and that they need to take what is happening around them seriously. 

The characters are believable, and behave for the most part in ways I can relate to. Trying to get one’s family members together in one location when a catastrophe strikes, being separated from those you love while doing so, trying to understand what is happening around you when you have very little time to reflect, and trying to decide whether you should provide help to others or just protect yourself and your family. These are issues that most of us can relate to. It will be interesting to see where this show takes us. I can definitely envision enough material for one season; I have a harder time understanding what the second season will focus on. But so far so good; I’m looking forward to the third episode. I’ve got to wonder though, why so many people, myself included, are watching shows with apocalyptic themes; is it an acknowledgment of the fact that we really cannot control the world around us, much as we think we can? Nature (tornadoes, earthquakes, tsunamis), pandemics (infectious diseases) or even certain groups within society (terrorists, gangs, etc.) do what they do whenever and wherever they want, and we have little to no control over them. 

The end of summer

I have a feeling that autumn will come early to Oslo this year. This past week we had a lot of rain, and what I would have termed a mini-hurricane on Wednesday, with strong winds and stormy weather. The clouds looked threatening, so all in all, it signaled the end of summer, at least to me. Temperatures have become cooler; we’re down to around sixty degrees Fahrenheit during the afternoons, the warmest time of day. We had friends from Illinois visiting us for a few days at the end of August; luckily they flew out of Oslo about half a day before the weather turned from nice to stormy. While they were here, the weather was lovely, and that always helps to give a nice impression of Oslo. We enjoyed our visit together, and I spent some time showing them my Oslo—the small little places that tourists would not really know about. One of those places is Hønsa Lovisas house, a small little red house on the Akerselva River, not far from where we live, which used to be a residence and is now a cozy little café that serves very good waffles with jam and sour cream. It is also an art gallery for different kinds of modern art exhibitions. You can read more about it here, but for my non-Norwegian readers, the website is in Norwegian, so you’ll have to translate it using Google Translate (http://www.honselovisashus.no/html_sider/10_HJEM.html). It’s a nice place to spend an hour or so relaxing on a Sunday afternoon.

I realized today that I am a ‘four-seasons’ person. I look forward to the change of seasons and what each season brings. I would not want to live all-year round in a hot climate. My sister has discovered the same; the hot southern states are not for her. She prefers upstate NY. Autumn is always a reminder of the promise of a new school year; while I am no longer a student, I still like the feeling of a ‘new start’—projects around the house, new recipes to try, new photography projects. I look forward to the leaves changing color, to Halloween, to Thanksgiving, to walking outdoors in the cooler weather. Christmas arrives with winter, and that is always something to look forward to—buying gifts, making food, celebrating the holiday with loved ones. Plus the evenings are darker and longer, so it makes viewing the skies much easier with my telescope. I’ll be looking for Jupiter, Mars and Venus this winter. Spring signals rebirth; next spring, we may finally get our city parcel garden (we’ve been on the waiting list for six years), which will enable us to plant vegetables and flowers and tend to them. We’re looking forward to that and to seeing what kind of harvest we’ll get. Our discussions now revolve around what kind of vegetables and flowers we want to plant; we may plant an apple tree and a raspberry bush. And then of course there is summer to look forward to—my annual trip to NY to visit my friends and family, as well as vacation here in Norway or in another European country. I soak in the warmth of summer, to prepare me for the cold of winter. I could not face winter without having had the warmth of summer. I am glad to be able to experience all the seasons; as my mother used to say, each season has its charm.

A new poem for my brother

Moving on

Seven months have come and gone

Months you did not get to see

All the life that once was yours

Weeks gone by, life moved on

Thinking of you, not forgotten

But then there are those sudden thoughts

A hand grips tightly round my heart

Is life’s struggle all for naught?

Were your life and death in vain?

So unfair, your early exit

Left behind uncertain fates

And sad hearts that know of pain

Seven months have come and gone

Those in your life move on without you

I see you in my mind’s eye alone

I wish I could have protected you

copyright 2015

Paula M. De Angelis

An August half moon

A recent half moon that I took a photo of with my camera/telescope arrangement. I was particularly happy with this photo, because the resolution is very good. You can really see the craters on the moon's surface. And that's not so easy to achieve each time I set out to photograph the moon. It is both a challenge and a pleasure to photograph the night sky.

Bullying in the workplace

If you have never observed or personally experienced bullying in the workplace, you can count yourself among the lucky people here in this life. I have known several people (men and women) who have been the recipients of behavior from their bosses that was suggestive of bullying. It was more subtle than aggressive, perhaps in keeping with the Scandinavian mindset as opposed to the more aggressive American one, but I would call it bullying nonetheless.

The reason I was reminded of this topic is because I read about it recently in the coursework for an online mini-MBA program that I am currently enrolled in. This particular mini-MBA program, offered by Probana Business School, has six modules, all of which focus on different aspects of leadership. The current one, Module 4, has Value-based Leadership as its focus. The chapters in this module deal with cultural leadership, the ethics of leadership, Corporate Social Responsibility, stress management, and the workplace environment, among others.

I found the chapter on the workplace environment (physical and psychosocial) to be excellent from all standpoints. Not only is it well-written, but it is timely and important. The topic of bullying in the workplace was introduced and discussed extensively; it is apparently a large problem in many modern workplaces. Bullying can result from conflicts that become exacerbated, where it is difficult to identify a bully or a victim; the other type of bullying is termed predatory bullying—in this case there is no difficulty in identifying the bully and the victim. Predatory bullying seems to be most prevalent in workplaces. Bosses can bully their employees, and employees can bully each other. It does not have to be physical bullying; it can also be psychological bullying, which is often far more subtle and insidious. This type of bullying has only one goal, and that is to reduce the victim to a pile of rubble. You might wonder why some bosses go to the trouble of targeting certain employees for destruction. The answer is that they can; some evil-minded bosses can exploit the weaknesses they see in their employees. They exploit the imbalance of power because they can. They might bully those employees who are perceived to be more intelligent than they are, or who are not easy to control. Creative intelligent people tend to prefer to think for themselves; you’d think that would be attractive for most bosses, but sometimes it’s not. Many bosses prefer employees they can control, and it is often those employees who get promoted at the expense of the ones who are much less ‘manageable’.

I have mostly been witness to psychological bullying in the workplace—the type of bullying that can be subtle and insidious. It can take the form of joking about an employee in a meeting in front of others; the intent is to humiliate that person, while the boss comes off smelling like roses—how can you fault him or her for having a sense of humor? Surely employees can take a joke. Sometimes the information that is given to employees about the job at hand is incorrect or incomplete, such that they cannot do their job correctly. Some employees are routinely overlooked when it comes time for promotions or raises; this can be due to gender discrimination, age discrimination, or personal dislike on the part of management. Some employees are ‘frozen out’ by management--ignored or bypassed when it comes to new projects, denied specific opportunities for advancement, denied project leadership, etc. Still others are the recipients of vague, unclear communication on a continual basis, such that they are never really sure where they stand. Others are the victims of backbiting and gossip, which can often be quite cruel. All of it is designed to weaken and eventually annihilate the victim.

Regardless of who is doing the bullying, the cost to the workplace can be substantial, due to reduced productivity, loss of morale, and a negative and destructive workplace environment. Bullied employees experience fear, shock, hopelessness, serious psychological problems, stress disorders, and eventually go out on sick leave or quit. Management can simply not afford to ignore this problem, and if management is the problem, if some members of management are doing the bullying, then the bullies involved should be forced to resign, and then replaced by leaders with more emotional intelligence.