Welcome to the Wakefield Doctrine (the theory of clarks, scotts and rogers)
‘Mare’s Tails’ cross the sky, bleaching the cold blue into a more human shade.
(Landscape orientation)
The lower third of the photo is a row of trees seen from a distance. The upper two thirds of the photo is sky.
The are a mix of deciduous and pines and such. The winter-bare deciduous trees are wiry clumps against the horizon, looking for all the world like clumps of nerves reaching towards the heavens. The pines, on the other hand, are more unimaginative and, so how, down-to-earth. Their branches, solid from un-fallen needles seem to reach out to the adjacent trees as if to offer support.
The sky started the day as clear, winter-cold blue. The kind of blue that there should be an ice cream flavor of…except people wouldn’t be able to eat more than a spoonful, being as cold as it is. The blue of a cold winter sky is as close to alien as you could hope to see in the regular world. It’s a blue that whispers ‘black and cold as outer space’ but when you turn to the person next to you to tell them, it goes back to be just a clear, blue sky.
Contradictorily, the clouds in the sky makes the blue more earthbound. The topmost layer in the photo are the familiar cottony white, clumps of clouds. Below them (and above the trees) is a band of clouds referred to as ‘Mare’s Tail’ squarish and flat-looking, their tops are sheared off and streaming to the left. Like a painter, bored with a composition, ran his brush across the canvas where the paint had not completely dried.
Thanks go out to Josie Two Shoes for once again having the light on in this little corner of the blogosphere. The Ten Things of Thankful (TToT) is an exercise in the cultivation of a perspective on life and the world around us that focuses on the experience of gratitude. So crank up them typeola machines and digitize your experiences of the good, the surprising and the un-expected what life life may have thrown your way this week.
1) Lets use the lead photo as an example of how gratitude can be manifested in a reflection of a simple thing. I was going to say that my short years on a fishing boat left some useful insight into weather predictions and such, specifically the kinds of clouds that foretell of bad weather. (The most familiar of such is, of course, ‘Red skies at morning, sailors take warning. Red skies at night, sailors delight’ Although, when I think about the average commercial fisherman, I question the use of the verb ‘delight’. I mean, were I to have stopped in the middle of the last haul* of the day, the sun setting on a deck full of tired men, up to their knees in dead fish, point west and call out, “Hey fellas! Look at how red the sunset is! Isn’t it delightful?”)
In any event, I did a quick search of the term ‘Mare’s tail’ and the first return included a saying that I cannot recall hearing! “Mares’ tails and mackerel scales make lofty ships to carry low sails.” I am grateful for the internet. (Especially as a clark, for whom the internet is, like, the biggest used book and magazine store ever.)
2) youtube for this week’s music vid from the Queen of Soul, Aretha Franklin. Sometimes some things just sound right for the moment.
3) The FTSF bloghop. They’ve changed the format slightly, providing for a different ‘theme’ each week. This week is was ‘stream-of-consciousness’ (yeah, I know! ‘Come to papa!‘). In any event the ‘subject’ of this SOC was ‘Winter’ and so the photo:
Una’s Garden ‘Frosted Letters in frozen grass’
4) Keeping to the nature theme, squirrels anyone? (Tree Rats is one of my favorite ‘alternate’ name for our furry little woodland friends.)
5) Easy one: moderate temperatures this weekend. In the high twenties over night, maybe upper 40s during the day.
6) Una and Phyllis (of course) ….hey! Phyllis just said that she and Una were going for a walk** this morning! I’ll save #7 for photos to appear later today of their adventure!
7) Photos are in from their walk!
Una on the bike path, as it runs through the Great Swamp Management Area (South Kingstown RI)
Phyllis and Una
8) the Wakefield Doctrine and the perspective made available being very fun and quite useful. On our call-in last night, Cynthia and Denise and I were discussing workplace applications of the Doctrine. And, to use one of the examples we were working on, lets say I’m in an interaction and feeling very stressed. I can stop, ‘circle around back and enter the situation through the rogerian (or scottian) ‘backstage entrance’. By doing so I have the opportunity, (knowing what I do about the realities of scotts and rogers) to get a sense of how the other person is experiencing the situation in question. Very often I discover that what they are doing that is causing me stress has little or nothing to do with me personally! Talk about taking a load off one’s shoulders. You really should try it.
9) ** a ‘walk’ walk, not to be mistaken for a ‘drive’ walk. The latter is what Una and I enjoy on Friday afternoons when the temperature is not damaging cold. Example from just this Friday:
10) Secret Rule 1.3 (everyone’s favorite Rule from the Book of Secret Rules (aka the Secret Book of Rules)
* ‘last haul’ the work on a fishing boat of the type I was on, (at the time I was on it), consisted of dragging a very large net along the bottom of the ocean. At certain intervals the net is brought onboard, emptied and put back in the water behind the boat, which continues to drag it along the bottom. The sequence of bringing in the net is referred to as ‘hauling back’. The net is brought to the portion of the deck that is divided into pens and emptied out. The work was then to separate the fish into what we wanted (that had a value) and what was not of value. The money fish were ‘picked’ into bushel baskets and dumped into fish-holds below decks. That sequence of work would be referred to as ‘a haul’, i.e. ‘first haul’ or ‘last haul’ (of the day).
Click this and join in on the TToT!
About clarkscottroger
The internet is amazing, and I liked your used book store analogy. I wandered into a used book store last week, and was delighted to find it was a used book store—I thought it was a new book store.Then, last night I watched a movie (We Love You, Sally Carmichael), and realized the book store in the movie was the same one I had wandered into last week! 😊
How did I not reply to your comment? I apologize.
Its been too long since I’ve been in a used book store but I can still (almost) remember the smell. Very Saturday-afternoonish smell… a place where people are quietly polite and there is a fundamental identification that can happen once you step through the door.
That must have been an odd (but cool) feeling… the art-imitating-reality-used-in-art
It really is a load off the shoulders. It’s rarely ever personal, is it? LOL. In fact, maybe it’s never personal. That would be in line with Don Miguel Ruiz who said to “never take anything personally” in is Four Agreements book. I wonder what Castaneda would have to say. Anyways, yeah, Ruiz argues that we’re all in our own “dream” (worldview) and that if we experienced life as they did, we’d know that it is never about YOU but always about THEM. And well…it’s ALWAYS fun to call in. So great to talk to you and Denise despite the in and out phone issues. Haha. I don’t think I said one cuss word! HAHAH. Just kidding. I hope y’all have a great week! Hugs to Phyllis, pats on the head to Una, and here’s to hoping spring gets here sooner rather than later. :) (I know, I know…there’s still February.)
Thank you for that example which (as is the way of the Doctrine) lead to the discussion that resulted in an enhanced understanding of our little personality theory.
Ditto Kristi – excellent analogy for the internet.
Poor 3rd wheel tree rat lol
#8 Clarification please. When dealing with scotts for sure not personal, but it’s not personal with rogers? I don’t have Doctrine vocabulary words to express what’s in my head at the moment. With rogers, it will first be about them, how, whatever is going on in their interaction with us, affects them, the herd and or reflection thereof, yes?
It was a very enjoyable call in last night. Good discussions.
everything is personal with rogers
if the coffee in the break room is burnt-tasting and stale, they will take that personally and seek someone whose fault it is or…. if there is a traffic accident and the highway is tied up….
as Cynthia alludes (or is that eludes…lol) knowing that makes it less a personal responsibility for us as clarks (and never let it be said that clarks shirk responsibility for…. everything but mostly the bad things lol) it is a way of short-circuiting our own autonomic entanglement… with a lifeform that is to emotions as a scott is to anything that darts away…. lol
Living on the flatlands as I do, cloud formations and movement are always a thing of beauty, even when menacing. I smiled at your notes on “sailor’s delight”. It doesn’t sound like your job was particularly delightful, but rather a lot of hard work, although fair weather certainly improved it a bit.
I love the way your light snow covering has accentuated the Una garden, it looks pretty like this. Very few pups are so honored as to have their name inscribed in large letters in the yard! You have such a beautiful place for Phyllis and Una to go walking on nice days, and I’m certain Una also enjoys those “drive walks” to see the sights.
I can understand how the Wakefield Doctrine aids in realizing the mindset of others in any given situation. I think whenever we become aware that everything is not perceived from the same point as reference as we have, it opens the door to understanding, communication, hopefully tolerance and even maybe compassion. Such a boring world it would be if everyone was just like us.
“Tree rats” made me laugh. My daughter and my husband have an ongoing joke about them. She feeds them, and he tells her tales of his boyhood when he eagerly filled his mother’s freezer with them to supplement their food supply. He always tells her to keep fattening them up, and she rolls her eyes, knowing he would now also be feeding them if we had any in our area to feed.
I know you are thankful for the more moderate temperatures to give you a break from winter. When we experience just a few days of freezing temps here we see it as enduring great hardship. Growing up in the Midwest, I remember how brutal winter can be, back then we never saw the ground between November and March. I have to say I don’t miss that, but snow will always seem magical… as long as I don’t have to walk or drive on ice.
I hope you’re having a good weekend and find many reasons to be thankful in the days ahead. You are a treasure.
Very much so. Theres a saying about fishing (and I understand a fair number of other professions) 95% boredom, 5% terror. (but then, in a slightly less charitable view: “its like being in prison, except you can drown” lol)
I’m grateful for the opportunity to have done it though, very memorable.
We shall see in the spring. One of our conclusions is that the diminished crop was a result of insufficient sunlight. Either need to get some trees removed or find vegetables that do not require so much light. ‘cept the corn was a lot of fun. won’t be surprised to see it show up again next year.
The Wakefield Doctrine is amazing and you’re totally on target about perspective. It’s not, unfortunately, that people do not acquire and develop alternate perspectives, it’s that far too many people can’t imagine that there is more than one reality (or as a more accessible way of saying it, ‘more than one valid point of view on things’). It helps that for god knows what reason, people act in many situations like they just read this blog and are going to play the part(s) to a ‘T’. lol
Days are getting noticeably longer!
If i had all the time i wanted, i’d get lost in the internet all of the time.
A very good list!
Nice thankful list. I like how you wrote Una’s name in the snow. I have a bunch of tree rats-my hubby will deliver :)
actually…. I didn’t write her name in the snow… I wrote into the ground last summer actually dug it, it was a garden (the letters U N A) of course
Think” and sbor 1.3. Does it get any better?
No. No it does not!
You worked on a commercial fishing boat? WOW! I once worked in a factory sticking labels on jars. And yeah, them tree rats sure do scamper not to mention steal the birds’ food. It’s good to be back and enjoy your perspective. I’ve now decided I’m probably 50/50 Scott/Clark or Clark/Scott, whichever at whatever a particular moment in time or situation occurs. Maybe I’m a scaredy-Scott; that’s a Clark’s description, for sure.
Ah you too ‘served the machine’. (That was my term for jobs involving repetitive tasks I had a fair number of those around the college years.
I was just talking to Phyllis about the Doctrine and the long established ‘anyone who comes to this blog more than once is either a predominant clark or a scott or roger with a secondary clarklike aspect. Phyllis is a roger, of course, but with a strong secondary clarklike aspect. Not so much a 50/50 as there is only one reality (per stable personality) however under duress and in certain situations our secondary aspect can make itself felt. Its a topic I haven’t spent much time on recently. I should get back to writing more Doctrine posts. Thanks for the encouragement!
Great list! I have never heard of squirrels referred to as ‘tree rats’ before. I like it!
lol… not that thats a bad thing (Dom Irrera)
Wonderfully descriptive phrasing under your photo of the Mares Tails. I love that last line.
Your #1 made me laugh and I’m sure that remark would have had them smirking on the boat.
Aretha Franklin sounds right just about any time.
The only squirrels that remind of rats are the black squirrels I saw in NYC. It didn’t help that I saw them running around the graves in a cemetery.
Standing up to your knees in dead fish… fisherman’s delight if they can visualize each fish as money, which probably wasn’t too hard for a college student to do.
What a great photo of Phyllis and Una!
You were working on a fishing boat at one time. I enjoy learning these new things about you, suddenly, within one of these TToT posts.
Thanks for another great photo description. I like the part about trees that are down to earth.
a way long ago…. early 80s it was (arr!) I did learn to squint, spit on the ground and say, “Looks like we’re in for some weather” lol