All writers have to use self promotion at some point or doom themselves to failure.  That being said, let me point out that there are multiple locations where people can find either something that I authored, or a piece that I have ghostwritten all or only part of.  The projects vary, especially the books.

Here are a few links:  http://paganpages.org/content/2012/07/what-is-paganism/  http://www.hypergridbusiness.com/2011/08/3d-improves-interest-learning-outcomes-in-school/  http://www.standoutleadership.com/products Be Diversity Competent!   http://www.alethia.co.in/p/catalog.html ,  http://www.amazon.com/An-Adventure-in-Indianapolis-ebook/dp/B001F0QG7U  ,  http://www.scribd.com/MiriamSPia http://uranianfiction.com/.
These include quite a range of topics, and hopefully you will all enjoy having a look and some of you will go so far as to buy.  I only get paid from items bought through Amazon – the novel only, and through the Uranian Fiction website.

Yesterday’s post poked at, but did not directly address how the sign for the town tells people so much.  The symbol of this village is blue and white.  There is a windmill – an old fashioned one, above a squiggly line – which is a river.  Underneath there are 2 horses but done stylistically as crossed wooden sticks [cricket bats?] with horse heads at the end.

The first year I lived here I knew it, but it did not seem very ‘deep’.  Now, this Summer I have been to the river, made a little game of counting the local horses and have seen windmills from the riverbank – there is also an old fashioned wind mill closer to the center of town.

Really, that is only a few repetitions but there they are once again:  windmill, river, horses.  Once again, this is what I was getting at yesterday with the comments about the Germans being direct even though the language barrier makes it confusing.

Germans are generally very clear and direct in most of their communications.  Of course, when one does not know their language, it can be easy to not realize this.  The directness has a wonderful aspect: see our Norse deity Thor and the sense of security of knowing that one has heard the closest expression of truth the person could come up with.  The directness has a down side – so much so, that over in England I learned that the Germans are considered to be rude in general.  In England it is more important to be polite than honest and they are delicate and sensitive people.  The English are more into plaster than brick, even though they do use brick.  The Germans are more into brick, but will use plaster.

I liked England so even though I have heard that Germans are straightforward I still feel like I don’t really know.  I was an American in Germany for 18 months before I figured out that ‘versicherung’ means ‘insurance’ not ‘warts’ or ‘foot powder’.

OK, hopefully my father will not feel overly exposed when I share this.  My father grew up out in Southern California but migrated Eastward.  Even in Central and Western NY state, he still complained of the heat in the Summer.  As it happens he also studied German.  He actually met my mother in German lessons when they were college students [that’s university to the British].  He took his German studies a bit further for his PhD but didn’t tell me that until after I had been living in Germany for nearly 2 years and over 15 years ago had planned to finish my German philosophy studies while doing the international child rearing activity because that would be so practical – learning German for the doctorate to consolidate teaching philosophy as a professor specialized in deceased German philosophers of the 19th century:  Say Hegel and Nietzsche – my fab faves of dead German thinkers.  However, that plan was marred if not utterly destroyed years ago, but I am still trying to behave like, get some publications out in philosophy and would like to teach more philosophy.  The way that was messed up derailed the practicality of my spending a few years in Germany – but my son’s ‘need’ to be here as he is not foreign…even though he is also not foreign in the USA remained.  It was not my intention to sacrifice my personal goals to raise my kid nor to sacrifice my child’s well being to my personal more selfish interests.

That having gone into very self-centred realms, we can snap back out of it and notice that we have noticed how cool Germany is.  The heat broke again so today, although it is still warm is not as warm or Sunny as yesterday.  Nietzsche wrote that people should live where the climate suits them – which makes sense.  My father would probably prefer Germany because it does not get hot here.  That was the real point.

This is a reasonably good question.  There are a variety of ways that people have relationships and judge commitments.  There is a variety of lifestyles available to people.  There are special reactions people to have the marriage ceremonies – often due to social considerations about vows, and their significance.

The truth is that because people are different and society influences the events in our lives that it does matter whether or not people are married.  However, the location, and many other attitudes are also involved.  There are relationships which are are robust and loving and full of devotion without the need for what to some is merely a binding contract on paper – and you know that often people only need it in writing when there is a lack of trust….but for others is a sanctification.  There are people who only respect romances that are marriages, or only when a religious marriage took place in a specific religion – the ritual has to be a certain one or they won’t even respect it.

There are relationships which are dedicated and stand all the tests normally reserved for marriages but legally, technically they are not.  In some cases, this just makes the wife less financially or socially secure but in other cases it reduces the risk of people out to destroy their relationship because it is a marriage or worrying about whether support for the success of the relationship is broad or quite narrow.

Something to think about.

Right now, the 16 year old is here with me and I am glad.  So far during his teen years he has had a number of the same friends but then was forced to move to Germany.  There he has been surrounded by most of the same relatives – and extra relatives he knew from visiting this very town for ten years prior to moving here.   Thanks to the power of the Internet, he has been able to continue to play and exchange at least some messages with at least some of his American friends from the huge portion of his childhood – 10 years, that he spent living in Indianapolis.  The other aspect of this is that it makes it so that he can at least sort of both be with and play with others at the same time.

Ken Wilber’s 4 quadrants.  Have a quick look at this.  While Buddhists do deal with the whole of reality, their area of expertise is the subjective mind.
That statement is true, but so general that if you learn all about it, it may seem false later on or still true but very vague….Vague like, “I’m from the USA,” is true but there is so much that does not tell you.
OK, not to condescend to anyone, what happened is that yesterday I learned about the “Press this” button at a blog that allows me to re-blog from another person’s blog.

On being in Germany:  I’ve done a bike ride, been down to the river Weser…seen 10 horses, 1 pony, 15 people, and did have time with my son.

On using the German language here in Germany.  I spoke German for maybe 15 to 30 seconds today and heard 2 local people around 26 years old respond in the German language.  I think they described today as being “endlich”  which I think is good.