When I left San Francisco, I came back to Orange County, and took a small apartment in Santa Ana, in a charming inexpensive neighborhood, the street lined with tall eucalyptus trees. At first I worked in a nightclub behind the bar, but that came to an end. And I searched for work. My neighbor, an agreeable young man, was working in the driveway, mysteriously painting patches of transparent color on old windshields, then smashing the windshield with a loud clatter. In those days…about 1972…windshields broke into thousands of tiny flat diamonds. I told him of my job hunt, and he said I could work for the people he worked for. He held up a small glass bowl, covered with the colored glass diamonds. A candleholder, he declared. It was charming and pretty. He requested extra windshields, and I was hired. I learned to glue the flat bits on the bowl and then grout them like tiny tiles with an intense black grout.
My neighbor was surprising and eccentric. He had a much loved cat, who like himself, was a vegetarian. We chatted as we grouted candleholders. One day he invited me in his place, and I was stunned to see that the entire walls of the apartment were stained pitch black from the black grout. Wow! The grey cat rubbed on my legs purring. Indicating the walls, he said, “that’s why I moved the work outdoors.” Well, kind of too late, I thought.
Author Archives: christinasword
Working for the MAD DOCTOR
I left Santa Ana and took a room in a shared house in Costa Mesa, another little California beach town. Out of work again, I took a job as housekeeper for a doctors wife in Newport Beach, a very nice house in a very nice neighborhood, for minimum wage, $2.00 an hour in those days. But I was delighted with her. We hit it off. The first thing I learned was they had 11 children. Then I learned she played cello, my favorite instrument. I was contentedly cleaning the kitchen while she played arpeggios and sonorous tunes. She was the most gracious, calm, soft spoken and pretty woman I knew. Half of the kids were grown up and the younger ones were in school, except for the late baby.
It didn’t take long for for her to find out I was intelligent and she sent me to her husbands office to do some filing. It turns out he was the most famous and busy bone surgeon in the Los Angeles area. He did surgeries in Los Angeles hospitals, then returned to his home office in Newport. His secretary recently quit and they were desperate for a replacement. Well, how hard could filing be…I could say the alphabet, right? But when I saw the files, on long open shelves, they were literally upside down and backwards, out of order, and up to 20 years old. I had been pecking at it for a few hours a day when they found a new secretary. I continued to do filing.
The doctor was gone most of the day, at an L.A. Hospital doing surgery. He would come back in the afternoon, tired and cranky. He would nitpick on the new girls work, more rude and irritable all the time. On the third day he burst into the office, agitated, and slammed a paper down under her nose and shouted, WENSDAY! Is that how you spell WEDNESDAY! You dumb little snit! Don’t the train you? They send me idiots! He screeched, on and on. It was unbelievable. I sat there with my mouth hanging open. She burst into tears and ran from the office. Soon I was calling the agency, and we went through two more girls, until they said they wouldn’t send any more. The doctor bent over me, eyes glittering, and said “Can you type?” “Well a little,” I answered nervously.
The next thing I knew I was receptionist, and in charge of billing and insurance. Unfortunately the billing was as bad as the filing- up to 20 years out of date. No one paid this doctor for visits to the home office, no one asked them to. I decided to start with the last two years. At least half had never been paid, except recently, he asked them to pay in advance, and then billed insurance…and never reimbursed the patient, who were calling constantly. It was apparent he never would repay them.
A strange ominous man came in, asking for the doctor. He told me it was urgent, but the doctor was out. When the doctor came in I told him about it and he said if I saw him again, to immediately call him in the back office. He taught me how to recognize a federal license plate on a car, and call him. He would run out the back door when I called. Soon I learned the sinister man was an Internal Revenue Service agent…the doctor did nor pay taxes
I walked into his office one day just as he was stuffing a big bottle of whiskey in a drawer. I pretended not to notice. He always had a half empty glass on his desk. He was such a prim and trim looking man, with spectacles and thinning white hair. He looked every bit as a famous surgeon should. I was still working for his lovely wife…how did she put up with him? One evening I was working late, and he arrived with an attractive lady, blonde hair neatly coiffed, very professional looking, she might have been a doctor herself. They closed themselves in the copy room, there was busy clattering and humming for an hour, when I knocked timidly, I had to leave. He invited me in and introduced me to Clare, and explained they were printing flyers for a tax resistance group.
I stayed on for several more months even though he never paid me more than minimum wage. At one point he got me a nurses uniform so I could help him with the patients. “Of course don’t tell them you’re not a nurse,” he cautioned me.
30 years later, I was watching the evening news, and it caught my attention when his name was mentioned. He had a large home in an upscale Newport neighborhood, and he was being sued by neighbors because of an unsightly yard…stacks of old newspapers, baby carriages, old sinks on the lawn, tires on the roof. So far he had refused to clean up. And that’s the last I heard of him.
Love poem to the infinite
I know you
you are in the rivulets
cascading down the side of the mountain:
adjoining in the streams under the patterned clouds
where filtered light falls upon the rushing waters
yes you are in the whispering stream
in it’s little pools teeming with life
and in the groaning river which finds it way to the sea
which falls into the deeps
where currents sway the strangely colored life
where mysteries lie in the darkness
where flash of scale and fin are barely seen
you rise up in the flickering beams of light
which penetrate the surface;
you are the torrent of sunlight
which falls upon the sea
you are the eyes within the sun
and the fiery angels leaping in it’s corona
and spangling stars in the darkness of space
I know, oh yes, if I could only say.
A NEW WAY
THE NEO CHRISTIAN
The Logos
According to Webster’s dictionary, “In Greek philosophy, (the Logos is) reason… the controlling principle of the universe, as being manifested by speech.” (Webster Unabridged).
According to S.E. Frost Jr., Philo, a Greek philosopher who lived about the time of Christ, said, “There was a God who was so pure and so far above everything in this world that He could not possibly come into contact with it… there were many powers which radiated from God as light might radiate from a lamp. One of these powers, which he called the “Logos”, was the creator of the world. This Logos, he taught, worked with matter and out of it created everything in the universe.” (Basic Teachings of the Great Philosophers).
Logos To Son
The Greek term Logos means word. In the New Testament it says that in the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God.
The Absolute God is inconceivable, unknowable. But there is a Divine Being, who is called the Word, who is with God. This Being is knowable and is intermediate between God and humanity. In the early Christian Church this Being became identified with Christ.
Thus the Greeks and the early Christians both proposed that there is a Being of some sort who was with God. This idea grew into various forms. In the Christian Church, the Absolute became known as the Father and Logos became known as the Son.
A New Church
In the Old Church the Father God became “Jehovah”, a kind of “man in the sky” god. A New Church would identify the Father as the Absolute and the Son as the Divine Being. But these are not two gods. The Absolute comes first and is properly called God. The Divine Being descends from that and is a fragment of that. There are those who believe that Jesus is the Divine Being (the Logos, the Celestial Christ itself), but the Divine Being existed before Jesus was born and still exists now as the Celestial Christ.
AN EASTERN IDEA
In Hinduism there is a similar concept, in which there is an Absolute, called Brahman, and a creator god, called Brahma. But in that system Brahma is a demigod, a replaceable being who rose to that position after millennium of effort.
Ramakrishna, however, presents a concept more similar to the idea of Celestial Christ, of a Divine Being who arises out of the Absolute. To him the Being is the Form of the Absolute, but it is a passing form, which dissolves into the Absolute at the end of the universe.
His idea is a little different from the Neo-Christian idea presented here, where the Divine Being is accorded even more respect. The Divine Being is Eternal. Jesus said, “There is no way to the Father but by me.” It was the Celestial Christ speaking through him, saying the only way we can truly approach the Absolute is by the grace of the Divine Being, the Celestial Christ.
Quotes; Ramakrishna
The idea of a Divine Being and an Absolute was spoken of by the Indian philosopher Ramakrishna (mid 19th century). He uses the terms Personal God and Impersonal God(Brahman).
“The Infinite transforms itself into the finite and appears before the worshiper as God with form. God reveals himself … as an embodied Person.” (Thus spake Sri Ramakrishna)
“Many are the names of God and infinite forms through which he may be approached.”
Ramakrishna’s Vision of Christ
“Rays of light corning from the (painting of) Mother and Child entered his heart and began to change radically the ideas stored there … His devotion to the gods and goddesses were chased into hiding and new thoughts were displacing them.” from Visions of Sri Ramakrishna
“God with form and God without form are not two different beings.” Teachings of Sri RK p.8
“God is formless and God is with form too, and He is that which transcends both form and formlessness. He alone can say what He is.” Teachings of Sri RK p.5
Ramakrishna’s books were published in India without publisher’s name, date, and sometimes page numbers. The books are available at the Vedanta monasteries in So. Calif.
DIVINE BEING- THE CELESTIAL CHRIST
Celestial Christ is another name for the Divine Being.
The Divine Being is a fragment of the Absolute God. The Divine Being is between humanity and the Absolute.
The Absolute God is unknowable and unattainable.
The Absolute is not a being.
The Celestial Christ is the Eternal Form of the Absolute.
The Absolute cannot properly be called formless or void, it is called inconceivable.
The Divine Being is the Source and Creator of all universes.
The Divine Being is the source of all human souls. No person can surpass the Divine Being.
Anyone who thinks they have surpassed the Divine Being is in illusion by Intermediate Beings.
The Divine Being is twelve-dimensional and cannot be conceived of by the three-dimensional mind.
The universe with its Forms can enter a resting state, but it will always return, and we will return with it.
The true meaning of Christianity is acceptance of the Divine Being, the Celestial Christ.
All gods by any name are all parts of the Divine Being.
The Christian “Father” and “Son” may also be taken as symbols for the Absolute and the Divine Being.
“There is no way to the Father but by me” means there is no way to the Absolute except by the Celestial Christ.
Any description of the Divine Being is inadequate and sectarian.
THE ANSWER
What is God like? This is one of the greatest dilemmas for the spiritual student. Which description is correct? Is God a personal being that cares about us, as Christianity says, or is God an impersonal, formless void, as some mysticism says? Well, why not literally accept both? This is not meant to be vaguely open minded. It is possible to have a deep realization that there is a divine being, rising up out of an inconceivable absolute background. This solution answers the question in a very specific way.
Some philosophies have hinted at this system, but they usually do not have enough regard for the Divine Being, who has sometimes been presented as an inferior demiurge or demigod. But there is a perfect Divine Being that is the face and form of the Absolute.
The Logos
According to Webster’s dictionary, “In Greek philosophy, (the Logos is) reason… the controlling principle of the universe, as being manifested by speech.” (Webster Unabridged).
According to S.E. Frost Jr., Philo, a Greek philosopher who lived about the time of Christ, said, “There was a God who was so pure and so far above everything in this world that He could not possibly come into contact with it… there were many powers which radiated from God as light might radiate from a lamp. One of these powers, which he called the “Logos”, was the creator of the world. This Logos, he taught, worked with matter and out of it created everything in the universe.” (Basic Teachings of the Great Philosophers).
Christina Andrea Nelson
A 20th CENTURY WOMAN Part 2, the poet
The 80’s
Outline for the autobiography to come
1972
I moved back to Southern California because the marriage failed, got a job as a waitress in a nightclub, moved to a quiet Santa Ana neighborhood. Then I joined a religious group called Subud and got a job as a housekeeper with a lady from the group called Rasjida. Then I got a job with a doctor’s wife who sent me to work in her husband’s office as a secretary. Her husband was a crazy surgeon. I quit and joined the Krishna Temple.
1976
I went back to San Francisco and had visions for 9 months. That’s a little hard to explain but I needed a little rest after that. I rejoined my parents who had moved to Sedona, Arizona. I lived in a trailer park there and met a guy called Saxophone Joe and we hitchhiked to Boulder Colorado, where…
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TRAVELS in the 60’s
Author Christina Nelson in the 60’s
AUTOBIOGRAPHY in fewer words…I’m posting my biography a little at at time. But if you want to know I am, here it is in a nutshell. Well if that’s me in the 60’s, obviously I’m not a young kid. But keep in mind if you meet an older woman, you never know what she’s been through. To tell you the truth, it wasn’t always pretty, there were some rough times. The pictures are from San Francisco, Seattle (dancers) and Laguna Krishna Temple.
Visit me on Facebook, Christine Eckholm Nelson there.
THE GOLDEN ASS pursuing the Beatniks
1962 HIGH SCHOOL-Golden Ass and the Beatniks
Lyndia was my very best friend at that time, at Narbonne high school. She was petite and smart mouthed, with a pixie mop of red hair. My family lived in the exclusive Portuguese Bend Club on the shore of the Palos Verdes peninsula, and her family lived in a poor neighborhood in Torrance, but it didn’t matter to us what our parents had, we were in high school and having fun. We would both lie to our parents about where we were, and stay out all night driving around, going to surfer parties in Hermosa and Redondo Beach.
1959 – At that time my mother had showed me an article in a newspaper about Beatniks in San Francisco. “Just look at that!” she said scornfully rapping on the news photo. ‘They’re just not clean. They don’t use any elbow grease, that’s their problem…
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TEACH
We were seniors in high school. Our dance class had been together for several years and we were about to graduate. It was a sad time, leaving each other, and Teach. Teach decided to throw a party for the class at her home. We gathered in the gym and prepared for the trip in the van. “Are we going to meet your husband?” asked one of the girls. “Ah, well,” said Teach. “I don’t have a husband. I do have a roommate, a woman like me, actually a little bit older .. .I just didn’t want you to be too surprised or anything …. she’s been my roommate for many years.” We were mildly puzzled. We had never heard of an older person having a roommate.
At Teach’s house the elderly-looking lady roommate sat silent and uncomfortable on the couch the whole time. The next day at school the rumors…
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WILDMAN…POET, LEW GARDNER
Lew Gardner 1996- Mission Viejo The tall old man came storming into the back area of the huge bookstore where rows of chairs were set up for the poetry reading. “Hey Nasser!” he roared at a slim young poet. “Glad you made it. Haw, Haw, didn’t think you would!” “My family’s in town but I got away for an evening,” the younger man answered quietly. The old man dropped a brackish backpack on the floor and sat in a front row, pulling off his shoes and extending his feet, with one black and one red sock. He had a chartreuse stocking cap on. With his long white hair and beard, he gave the impression of a skinny and very eccentric Santa Claus. People rolled their eyes at each other. I could hardly wait to hear him read.After the reading was over the strange old man was asking around for a…View original post 839 more words
WILDMAN, POET, Lew Gardner part two
Picture, PARISE and Lew Gardner, Casey, at camp Parise is a friend of Lew’s. Let me rephrase that. Parise is Lew’s goddess. She also lived at Ortega Campground. Although Lew praises her untiringly, he also warned me against meeting her while she was pregnant. With good reason, I soon learned.
She and her husband Casey and their toddler daughter Maya lived in a big comfortable family tent next to Lew, sharing the same plot. Parise is a rather
pale fair woman of thirty with fine and limp brown hair, deceptively quiet and introverted, a little rounded from pregnancy. Her husband Casey is a wonderful looking part Indian man, seven years younger than her, who passed his large dark eyes on to their daughter.
I was visiting Lew when Parise arrived home at the camp. “Stay out of her way now,”he advised. Parise took one look at me, glared, pulled…
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krislasienne 