On This Journey We Call Our Life

On This Journey We Call Our Life: Living the Questions - James Hollis


The Ruah book for our latest retreat. I actually liked it! Why are Jungians so Jungian? like super into the whole deal? Like Marxists or Christians or what have you. I remember this cool book, Feet of Clay, about gurus and charismatic religious leaders, which included a chapter on Freud and another on Jung. For whatever reason they had quite the flock of disciples, each with their own schisms, first from each other and then within their later developed camps. I guess I haven't met or read anyone recently who's a Freud devotee. I do sense the closed-circuit nature of Jung's world. Very re-ligamentous. Jung is universal in the best, open-eyed adventurer sense, as well as in the worst, conquering-colonialist sense. Is that fair? I mean I haven't read very much. Anyways.


notes

• chindi (Navajo) - hungry ghosts
• question for 1st half of life - "what is the world asking of me"
• 2nd half - "what does the soul ask of me"
• complexes - autonomous, affect-laden ideas; energy clusters which have a life of their own and, when unchallenged, put one's life on automatic pilot
• what is the implicit question of our family of origin
• Jung - worst sin is unconsiousness
• Jung - I happen to myself
• Jung - a complex can be really overcome if it is lived out to the full
• what anxiety is aroused when you contemplate alternatives
• the shadow is everything about myself with which I am uncomfortable (negative or positive)
• we embody shadow in at least four different ways
• when it remains unconscious it makes choices for us
• project it onto others and criticize
• identify with it and live it out, unable to critique ourselves
• admit it, see it, grow in our capacity to work with its energies
• Liliane Frey-Rohn - too much morality strengthens evil in the inner world, and to little morality promotes a dissociation between good and evil.
• seven questions for reflection on shadow
• what do you consider your virtues
• what are the key patterns of your relationships
• what annoys you about your partner
• where do you repeatedly undermine yourself
• where are you stuck in life
• where do mom and dad still govern your life
• where do you refuse to grow up, or expect rescue
• our personal myth is our implicit value system
• money and good health are tops in our culture
• mythologems - affectively charged ideas or beliefs
• the real choices in life will always involve the conflict between competing values
• even when one finally tumbles to a long-lost talent or enthusiasm, and the supportive energy is palpable, we are seldom spared old issues of diminished permission, uncertain self-worth, etc...
• the search for reciprocal energy may be the contemporary form of the old Grail question, 'whom does the Grail serve?"
• apotropaism - image or practice which wards off threatening powers
• the hysteria of certainty is in direct proportion to uncertainty in the unconscious
• three characteristics of spiritual experience
• principle of resonance
• encounter with numinous
• engagement in depth
• only consciousness of fiction can spare us from literalism
• Jung - the soul cannot exist without its other side, which is always found in a "you"
• meeting place of opposites generally attended by symbol
• this humble achievement of unique personhood, with all its perverse permutations, is an act of the greatest praise, and what we most owe the world
• It was Jung's clinical experience (and is mine as well) that the overtly dying do not dream of endings. They dream of journeys, crossings, recovery. All of us dream of dying, but that seldom points to one's bodily death
• the more we presume the ego's sovereignty, the more we breed monsters
• Jung: depression should...be regarded as an unconscious compensation whose content must be made conscious if it is to be fully effective. This can only be done by consciously regressing along with the depressive tendency and integrating the memories so activated into the conscious mind - which is what the depression was aiming at in the first place
• I was obliged to stand before the depression and, humbled, ask, "what do you want of me?"
• suffering the tension between conflicting desires or needs or duties can lead to an awareness of what is really at stake in the context of one's larger journey
• to re-member the psyche
• recall we are psyche's being
• seek a dialogue with psyche which promotes healing in ourselves and others
• something wishes to re-member us
• entelechy - realizes that which was potential
• we are not our history, although it is of us; we are the quality and temper of our journey
• 
  

Walking Dream

    Last week at Ruah we discussed spirituality from a Jungian perspective (but much of the Ruah readings and lectures have been Jungian; maybe too much Jung for my taste). We were instructed in several different active imagination exercises and told to pick one and work with it for an hour and a half. I picked the "talk to nature" exercise: 1)walk around, 2)pay attention for a strong reaction - positive or negative - to another living thing (non-human), 3) sit near that thing and "be present to it," attentive, open, 4) after a while, start to tell that thing about yourself, 5) then stop again and listen to it, 6) finally thank the thing and then go journal about the experience.
   Well it was a cold day, and I wasn't sure I'd be able to sit for long, so I thought maybe I'd go for a walk and talk to the air or something. In any case, I wanted to go outside, though I was only half-serious about engaging the exercise. Nevertheless my walk took a couple unexpected turns and felt quite Jungian and dreamlike, so my instructor M recommended that I write it out as a dream, in the present tense, and interpret it that way.

 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 
   I grab my jacket and gloves and quickly leave. Sunny and cool. Yes I'll talk to the air or something...or not, whatever. I'll just try to be open. Breathe.
   I turn right out of the gate, on the brick walk, moving east on Grace Street. I see M, my instructor, a wise and beautiful woman whom I admire, walking ahead of me. I think, oh good, she's talking a walk too, but I don't want to follow her. She turns right down the 23rd street hill.
   In my pocket I fumble my phone. Earlier I missed a call from M, the electrician about my age, should I call him back? I'm supposed to be working on Ruah, not working on work.
   I call him, we talk just for a second, he says he has to call me back.
   Old houses I've seen a hundred times, I look at plaques and dates and names. The way dips down to 25th street and back up toward 26th. Sunlight is nice; it's cold in the shade.
   I don't like my work, why don't I like my work, I'm annoyed, here we go again with my worries about work.
   Hey a squirrel runs up the tree and sits on the lowest branch, about ten feet up. Stares me down. Really looks at me. Higher up, over the street, a dove perches, still and puffy, tail hanging down. I look at the squirrel. I hear a tap. Something else moves. I look, can't see it. I slowly adjust relative to the tree and finally see it. A woodpecker, a downy woodpecker or a hairy woodpecker? Probably a downy. It's pecking intermittently, working various angles at the joint between two small branches. Most of the bark is gone from that area.
   I'm standing, looking. Craning my neck. I'm excited, not cold. Well, maybe a little. I slide into the sun, put my hands behind my head to continue looking up.
   Is this loitering? Is anyone looking at me? Who is this creep?
   Around the base of the tree someone has been feeding these critters; sunflower seeds everywhere. Two squirrels now. One chases the other around the tree and down and right past my feet. The chaser comes back, giving me a wider berth this time.
   The dove hasn't moved. Is it asleep? How do birds sleep? Is it making micro-adjustments, smaller than I can see, with its tail and claws to stay perfectly balanced?
   Hello, my name is David Vinson...nice to meet you.
   I don't get much further than that. Still watching. Squirrel, dove, and woodpecker. Cars have passed, parked, started and driven away. I'm nervous, slightly embarrassed. Can I sit down? Not sure how long I can look up from this angle.
   I slowly back away and continue walking east. Here's the playground. Anybody at the hoop? I guess I'll walk around Chimborazo and go back. Or maybe down to Gillies Creek and then back.
   As I walk past the playground, to my right is the gully between Chimborazo and Libbie hills. I've noticed what look like paths down there before. The brush and briars are less thick this time of year...who does the property belong to? would it be ok to skirt the hill by way of the gully and come up chimborazo by the dog park?
   What the heck, let's go down. I backtrack and descend below the retaining wall, down into the gully. Ivy, sticks, brush, vines, trash, what you might expect. 
   Here's a sandy bed, and bushes with some clearance. I can stoop underneath these bushes, but to follow the wash out would be difficult. Would need to crawl or hack. I'll just climb back up the hill side and scoot down from another angle.
   Down. Here's a path, turns left, right, kinda runs out as the hillside drops sharply down southward. Looking left, just east through the bushes, I can see filmy water, bog-like. Is that water trickling down over some rocks I hear? A little scramble down, over a tree, under a vine, jump to the rocky, sandy creekside.
   .....
   Indeed behind me to my left a tiny cascade down to the creek. The creek, is it a runoff creek? a wadi, gully wash...running down from a...
   A large concrete arch...20 ft high? 30 feet across?
   I walk toward it...it's built into the gully, its bed filled in with sand, silt, and water...how far back does it go? Wait! its the Church Hill tunnel! The southeastern end of it. I squint...and can see a wall. It's bricked up back there, blocked up, closed up, yes I can remember being told about this. I had no idea it was here. Stalactites hang from the roof of the tunnel. The interior darkness of the tunnel, the peaceful trickle behind me, the sandy, rocky beach.
   Voices behind me. I can see the new tall row-house style apartments on the steep slope of Franklin street. Should I leave? The voices sound old. They're moving this way, slowly. Their voices echo in the tunnel. I see two old men walking upstream, carefully picking their way around the mud. One is leading the other, older. They step onto an old tire to cross the brook.
   We exchange greetings. The younger old man tells the older old man about the tunnel, a boiler explosion, the fireman that crawled out but died of his injuries, the unknown number of dead (less than ten) buried under the cave-in. He says he will be part of a urban hike the next day, tracing the approximate route of the tunnel, looking at depressions and landscape contours that are results of cave-ins.
    They head back toward Franklin street. I head back up the hill, explore a few more paths, find myself behind a fence at a colorful graffiti covered warehouse below Libby Hill. The gully wash is dammed up at that point with a mound of rocks and soil. Where does the water go?
    Back up, around and down again to the tunnel. I've got to show J this! He would love it! I make some sounds to enjoy the echo. I egress to Franklin St. this time, up Libby hill, time to go back to Richmond Hill.
   Passing MW's house (aunt of an old flame), I scope out her outbuilding, formerly house for enslaved folks, according to B. Wait, the gable end walls extend higher than the roof line, and the roof itself has a very low slope. Just like J and G were describing, based on the Sanborn map, may have been the case at the partially remaining house at Rich Hill.
   Emboldened, on my way back, I take a turn up the alley behind the 2300's on Grace street, to peer at three very well preserved outbuildings. Two are certainly houses for enslaved workers. Is the large one as well? It too has parapet walls on the gable ends.
   Back to Richmond Hill. Just in time. I want to share this...but maybe I don't. Will I have to? I really want to show J, rather than tell him. Prompted by our leader, we pair up to share out experiences. I'm sitting next to M, my instructor. I tell her. She shares her walk story. The river. Birds. The large group shares a little. I agree with D, who says that it was surprising. J asks me what exercise I picked. I hesitate, uhh, I'd really like to show you rather than tell you. Everyone reacts, laughing, now you have to tell us.

African Americans and Depression

African Americans and Depression - Julia Hastings, Lani Jones, Pamela Martin

What's the angle?
Hastings, Jones, and Martin - all three psychological researchers and all three African American - share some of their thoughts and research on depression in the African American community - a topic understudied and undertaught. They also provide a lot of encouragement to those suffering from depression, some advice on how to seek help, and a brief guide to America's health care (and mental health care) system.

What is depression?
They basically stick with the DSM definition, but also describe depression in case histories and examples.

What causes depression?
They don't specifically identify one cause or another, but simply say that depression has many causes - genetic, psychological, social, and/or environmental. They do, however, highlight a bewildering array of socio-economic stressors facing the African American community, not to place the root of depression in that sphere, but to demand that we understand depression in that context. For African Americans, social struggle is woven into in depression's cause and cure.

Religion and depression
They all mention spirituality and religion, in a positive way, and they explain that faith has been a key element in African American survival and mental resilience. They also note that, in the church, seeking psychological help can be seen as a lack of faith. Mental and emotional health are often thought to be the domain of spirituality.

Strength-building
Another refrain in the book is "encourage your strengths," or "play to your strengths," I'm paraphrasing. In the author's experiences, that seems to be a particularly important or effective.

Rates of Depression
They mention statistics of significantly higher levels of major depression in the White population than in the Black population. They suspect that some of that discrepancy has to do with the African American community being underdiagnosed for depression. I'm curious to know what more recent studies have shown.

notes

• Throughout American history the mental health status of African Americans has always been in question, and, according to Professor James S. Jackson, a noted researcher on Black mental health, has been 'used to justify slavery, enforce racial segregation, and reinforce the idea that blacks were inferior to whites.'
• Our strength as a people has always been discovering ways to maintain personhood against many adversities.
• With this daily assault on self-respect, the right to exist truly becomes an ordeal.
• John Henryism - working to exhaustion with little reward
• higher rate for major depression in Whites than African-American, but data may not be quite accurate
• the question as to whether African Americans, and Black people overall, exhibit different behavioral cues of depression remains debatable
• African American women are recognized as the most undertreated group for depression in the United States
• Men are more likely to report being very tired, exhibit irritability, lost interest in once pleasurable activities, and have difficulty sleeping
• although women are more likely to attempt suicide, a higher number of men die by violent suicide in the u.s.
• more than half of people suffering from depression cannot function well in meeting social obligations as a result of their mental illness
• the economically disadvantaged and the uninsured most particularly rely extensively on emergency medical services
• African Americans are overrepresented among emergency medial service users
• Af-Am are more likely to be considered gravely disabled or a danger to themselves or others and to be subject to involuntary commitment
• several factors may contribute to Af-Am's being properly diagnosed and treated
• mistrust, based on higher-than-average institutioalization
• cultural and language barriers
• reliance on family and religion
• the masking of depression by other medical conditions
• socio-economic factors, limited access
• only 1/3 of Af-Am with mental health difficulties use professional services
• a 2009 study found that 2/3rds of primary care physicians were unable to obtain mental health care for their patients who needed it
• Africentricity is both theory and practice that is rooted in a cultural orientation toward spirituality, interpersonal relationships, communalism, and expressive communication.
• bioecological theory
• microsystem - person to person interactions
• mesosystem - interconnectedness of microsystems
• exosystem - social environments not directly relevant, but involved
• macrosystem - cultural patterns and values
• chronosystem - periods of time or developmental stages
• the neglectful treatment of police brutality by the legal sectors of the u.s. expecially adds emphasis to the attack on the african american psyche.
• ...attempting to alleviate low feelings transforms into a search for a higher purpose and understanding
• experiencing depression tempts the mind to create suffering
• actually care for yourself
• ...there is something about discussing depression among African Americans that calls for hushed tones. We believe that no one needs to suffer unnecessarily when there are treatment options

More Birds

Why is this called the red-bellied woodpecker? Anyway they are striking, and one has visited us a few times recently. [retraction: it continues to visit us, and I have noticed the red tinge of its lower underbelly. to whomever named this bird - sorry I doubted you!]

On my bucket list is to see an ivory billed woodpecker. I have my Granddaddy Richard's painting of one, and he often commented about how they thought it was extinct, then found it in the backwoods of Arkansas. He was a life-long Republican, but also a big fan of the Sierra Club and other tree-hugger groups.



We've had a frequent visitor that I misidentified at first as a carolina chickadee (of which we have a few regulars; so cute); its a white-breasted nut-hatch, a male I think, but not quite this blueish. He doesn't seem too afraid of me, and will let me stand about four feet away. The chickadees are pretty tolerant as well. Closer than that and he makes a funny little squawk and flies away. He prefers the sunflower seeds, and will work hard to release the other seeds until a sunflower seed falls out.



The blue-jays are too big to perch on the feeder, but they often come around when the sparrows are feeding in groups. The sparrows dance around and spill seeds everywhere, and the jays and doves and squirrels can help themselves.



One of my most exciting bird sightings was a few weeks ago, walking up my brother's front walk - a little bird flew from upper right to lower left in my field of vision, darting deep into a bush and a small hawk, right on its tail, pulled up and swerved left at the last minute. I was like, whoa, what just happened. It was a small hawk, maybe a sharp shinned hawk? (which is said to be usually smaller than a crow)



Or maybe a cooper's hawk? I think I've seen some coopers hawks around richmond hill. Hawks frequent the trees and ride the up-drafts on the edge of the hill. I'm hoping I can learn identify them better. Speaking of the up-draft, it makes cleaning the south side gutters of the dormitory a pain. I toss the leaves over the edge and half of them blow back up onto the roof!

Using the Bible in Spiritual Direction

Using the Bible in Spiritual Direction - Liz Hoare

"...Get the dust off the Bible and redeem your poor soul..." - Hank Williams. 

That seems to be Liz Hoare's main advice to spiritual directors. Read the Bible, soak it in, "inhabit" its landscape, open yourself to the Spirit hovering over the scriptural waters. The best way to use the Bible in spiritual direction is to use the Bible regularly in your own life. Then during spiritual direction you may be led to incorporate Biblical stories or themes in your discussion, or you may be able to recommend certain verses or passages for meditation or reflection.

I was a little disappointed by the book; I was hoping for more play-by-play advice on how to use, advise, or recommend the Bible during a spiritual direction session. Or perhaps a case study approach, with analysis of how a spiritual director's use of Scripture proved helpful or not. This book is more about describing spiritual direction generally, while emphasizing the key role Scripture plays in Christian formation.  In fact this is a wonderful intro to spiritual direction.

On the other hand Hoare digs into different Bible reading traditions - lectio divina, Ignatian method, the Anglican version of the daily office, Evangelical commitment to Biblical authority - and she highlights the richness and good fruit these practices can produce. She encourages directors to encourage Scripture, but not to demand certain beliefs about it, or to demand certain interpretive styles. Hoare also recognizes that some people have been hurt by Biblical words, or by others who used the Bible in an abusive way. So directors should offer Scripture and Scripture reading practices gently and with no strings attached.

Perhaps her best example of using the Bible in spiritual direction comes in chapter 6, when she discusses Biblical themes that frequently come up in spiritual direction - questions, desert, silence, guidance, risk, fear. Maybe we could say that using the Bible in spiritual direction is an associative practice; we connect things or experiences from our lives to the Biblical world, which connects us to a wider landscape, a different perspective, a diverse tradition, a community.

Read the Bible, that's my take-away. Read Scripture regularly and then trust that the Spirit will prompt me to use it wisely during spiritual direction.


notes

• inhabiting a landscape
• scriptures as authoritative
• aim of spir dir to hear and respond to God
• at the end she would gather up all the fragments of conversation and offer it to God with me
• concerned with the whole of life
• throughout the story of God's involvement with humanity, one person has been used time and time again to point the way to another
• integration
• you have set my feet in a broad place
• scriptures as God's self-revelation
• many silences in Scripture that are worthy of attention
• we are not the best people to comment on our own spiritual progress
• inhabiting the Scriptures, the Scriptures inhabiting us
• need to be doing for themselves what they are seeking to help their directors to learn
• the desert dwellers believed that discernment and self-knowledge were central to interpreting scripture and that experience deepened interpretation and took them into new realms of spiritual growth and understanding. prayer and scripture mutually informed each other and faithful praxis led to growth in holiness
• God's word interact with our lives, prov 6.22, 'when you walk, it will lead you; when you lie down, it will watch over you; and when you awake, it will talk with you.'
• atmosphere
• spir direction in the Bible
• neither can control the scriptures, have a life of their own
• Holy Spirit the real director, also key to memory
• belong to community
• corporate enterprise
• God's word is always personal, but never private
• interpretation is always advocacy
• listening, performance
• not to be used to browbeat or force
• words of life turned into words of death
• story to understand our story
• we have committed ourselves to something we cannot yet see
• metaphor, imagery
• repetition
• deepen rather than deaden insight
• like panning for gold
• desert
• waiting
• spir dir very risky
• directors, vs mentors, guidance, anam chara, soul friend, etc, different models
• seeking a word "rhema", speak a word to me
• lectio divina
• ignatian prayer, finding God in all things, imaginatively putting ourselves in scripture, memorizing Bible verses or praying verses, daily office
• midwife, hospitality, teacher, gardeners, doctors, intercessors, friendship
• prayer
• road to emmaus, hearts burning
• "scripture and experience unite in the person of Jesus"
• pray as you can, not as you can't
• emphasis on listening, not necessarily reading
• scripture and prayer out loud, art, dance, "sigh's too deep for words", icons, eucharist
• paying attention to scripture together
• in God is our collective homecoming
• by wise and judicious use of scripture it can help to foster a language to see God in all things and articulate our experience with a companion along the way

Addiction and Grace

Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions - Alcoholics Anonymous

Awesome.


Addiction and Grace - Gerald May

I appreciated May broadening the scope of addiction: we can become addicted to most any substance or behavior, he says, even or especially mental behaviors like thoughts and beliefs. The only thing we can't become addicted to is grace, because it is completely free. It is not controllable or predictable. You might say it is arbitrary and not dependable. In this book May presents the spiritual life as a gradual loosening of addictions through the interplay of God's grace and a person's will.

His five markers for addiction: tolerance, withdrawal symptoms, self-deception, loss of will-power, and distortion of attention.

Worry Loops

   I think I first recognized my tendency for anxious, circular thinking in late elementary school, like maybe 8 years old. I remember a couple specific loops, one having to do with washing my hands before eating...did I do it well enough? did I mess them up in the three minutes between washing them and dinner time? lemme washing them again, just to be sure. 
   That was the only neurotic behavior that I've heard my parents say they were worried about. At some point the hand-washing-loop disappeared, or slowly dissolved, or was dislodged by other, less specific worry loops. Most of my loops were and still are vague and moral. I was a very scrupulous kid.
   One of my current worry loops is Donald Trump. In fact I think Donald Trump + twitter + 24 hour "breaking" news has created a national worry loop. Maybe it's better labeled as obsession.

• "Obsessions: Recurrent and persistent thoughts, urges, or images that are experienced, at some time during the disturbance as intrusive and inappropriate, and that cause marked anxiety and distress.

Is that not cable news? Is that not the collective response to Donald Trump or Donald Trump-detractors? It's out of control. Has there ever been anything like this before on such a large scale? Trump complains but he isn't really complaining, he loves the attention. He is obsessed with himself along with the rest of us.

Here are things I think about him, way too often. Maybe writing them down will excise them? Or abate them? I doubt it. My most helpful remedies for worry loops, generally, are 1) prayer/meditation/breathing exercises, 2) do something very involved, like play the piano, 3) go outside and look around.

• I can understand why Christians would vote for him, but why do so many Christians enthusiastically endorse him?
• He personally and publicly insults people, regularly.
• He insults the character (not just the opinions) of groups of people, regularly (immigrants, liberals, the media, foreign countries, etc).
• He lies, regularly.
• He exaggerates, regularly.
• He attempted to deter immigrants from crossing the border by taking the children away from those who did cross.
• He has drastically reduced our refugee acceptance rate to its lowest ever since the programs inception in 1980, arguing that we should help the refugees settle somewhere closer to their home, while simultaneously attempting to slash our foreign aid budget.
• He is on record multiple times speaking about his disrespect, objectification, and harassment of women.
• He seems to show no remorse.
• The only time I know of that he ever apologized for any of the things he's said or done was in response to the release of his taped conversation with Billy Bush. And in that very apology, he quickly deflected the spotlight on his sin and pivoted to an attack on the Clinton's (who have their own sins to account for, but the point is - Trump seems to care only if 1) he's caught and 2) it greatly affects his image).
• Money, influence, prestige, good looks, and ratings - these are his markers for success, his key goals. He proclaims them regularly, and his actions display them. His life has been based on them. Look, I don't know him, and I don't know his relationship with God, but it seems reasonable to say he doesn't care very much about the things Jesus cared about.
• Other things frequently on my mind
• He turned so quickly against Jeff Sessions, his biggest supporter in the Senate during his campaign.
• He praises the military but disrespects the service of veterans who criticize him.
• He makes policy statements out of the blue and with little to no explanation.
• A handful of top leaders in his campaign are going to jail.
• He loves tariffs, and continually asserts that Americans aren't paying for them. I don't mind tariffs, per say, but why must he lie about them?
• He says cruel things about immigrants and orders cruel things done to them.
• He regularly propagates the non-factual idea that hispanic immigrants are more violent and criminal than American citizens; that refugees and asylum seekers present a greater security risk than American citizens.
• He wants to coerce China into fair and honest dealings with U.S. companies - that's great! but why ditch the TPP so quickly? Why kick the EU in the shins? Why not team up with others to pressure China?
• He lambasts NAFTA and then updates it with USCMA like its some sort new discovery.
• He picks people to run the EPA that don't like the EPA.
• He shrugs off climate change like it's a rumor.
• Make America Great Again? That may be the most racist slogan ever used in a presidential campaign. How could that ever apply to Black people, or any people of color? did the campaign leaders not think about that? or not care? or do they honestly believe that America's economic power and expansion had nothing to do with slavery and racist, anti-Indian policy?
• How could he say, on live TV, in front of the world, contradicting all his intelligence, that he doesn't know why it would be Russia that waged a online campaign to sway the election?
• He says he cares about the American worker, but he doesn't seem to care about labor organizing. Capital, investment, and ownership can move around the world and across borders much more easily than labor (as he has demonstrated with his own business dealings). Investors and executives can grab the ears of legislators all over the world, but individual laborers can't. 
• He's skeptical and critical of globalism and "free" trade, and I appreciate that. But he approaches the problem in such a promotional, salesman, superficial way. Promoting American industry is great; but what about substantial change? The lower classes, as individual workers and consumers, have so much less freedom in the local and global markets than the upper classes. Most people know that intuitively. But people forget just how much leverage and how many protections have been won by the labor and consumer movements (not to say they haven't abused their power at times, too).

Nonesuch Place

Nonesuch Place: A History of the Richmond Landscape - T. Tyler Potterfield

  Another treasure. It left me hanging, at every turn, in a good way. We need more geography and topography. I was especially interested to know details of the "leveling of Richmond," terracing, grading, cutting, blasting, etc.. How much has the topography actually changed since 1600? And what kind of terra-forming did the Powhatan tribes do? And how have the roads and trails been constructed, owned, contested, maintained or not? I'd love more data and history on the waterways, the creeks, lakes, wells, springs. How about logging and clearing? Biggest floods and fires... etc

notes

• the creek at the Head of Tide would be known over the years as Shacco's or Shackoe, a corruption of shacahocan, the Powhatan word for stone. The English kept the native word for the creek but came to refer to the large flat rock a the mouth of it as the Rock Landing
• the Powhatans referred to this great rocky outcropping [at the falls] in the their language as Pawachowng, translated by the English as the Falls at the upper end of the King's River
• Belle Isle to Mayos island - 50ft drop
• one of most iconic vantage points looking east from Harvie's Woods, later known as Hollywood Cemetery
• at one time, virtually every promonotory and vantage point on the banks of the river took it in
• Mayo, Powhatan Seat, 1737, not Powhatan Hill park
• Byrd II, Belvidre 1758
• Pratt's Castle 1850, a towered and castellated fantasy house on Gamble's Hill
• in 18th and 19th c the only craft that could navigate the falls were canoes maneuvered with iron-tipped poles and manned by teams of skilled and mostly African-American fishermen
• Poe developed reputation as daredevil swimmer/diver in richmond
• Olmstead observed in 1852 that richmond's islands supported a considerable amount of 'vice' or 'rowdyism'
• fishing constituted the most intensive human activity on the river from the time of Powhatan Native Americans to the industrialization of the river. during the spring spawning runs, richmond experienced a sort of fishing mania. on the tidal portion of the river, great seine nets hauled in vast quantities of sturgeon, herring and, most important of all, shad. those fish that made it past the seines faced a gauntlet of fishermen either tending fish traps or armed with nets and lines situated on the rocks, bridges and islands. the harvest could collect twenty thousand fish per day at the height of the run. typically, a toll or rent of one in four shad caught would be paid for the privilege of renting a fishing spot
• Ernest Walthall remembered the fishing scene on Mayo's Bridge during his boyhood as "lines of fishermen of all sizes, sex, color, and nationality" (1850-1860)
• 1730-1830 - flimsy wooden dams for mills and such, later ashlar masonry, then concrete
• Mayo's Bridge opened 1788, first bridge, rebuilt several times, toll bridge, only one until 1873 with free 9th street bridge!
• Mayo's Bridge 1911, Lee Bridge 1934, Alantic Coast Line RailRoad Bridge 1919
• b/w 1850-1920 large scale granite quarrying, carried by railroads
• lots of dumping of stone, earth, and debris into river, created Brown's Island
• pollution ended great fishing by 1900
• William Makepeace Thackeray, 1853, said Richmond the "picturesqest" he'd seen in America
• John Little describes geological underpinnings as "the result of alluvial deposits upon the granite basis of Richmond
• elevated plains, plateaus carved by river and creeks
• Mayo and James Wood surveyed site for town
• the use of large lots is also a common feature of VA town planning, reflecting the colonial era expectation that these would be garden rich towns and not dense urban metropolises
• the lines of the grid were surveyed without consideration of Richmond's irregular topography
• primary objective was create lots to sell
• the leveling out of Richmond proceeded over the course of the late 18th c through the 19th in the manner of a military campaign. prior to the civil war, the troops undertaking the backbreaking work of assaulting the terrain included african americans both slave and free, white laborers particularly irish immigrants, and chain gangs from the va penitentiary. after the civil war, the city regularly employed a chain gang of about twenty inmates from the city jail individually shackled with balls and chains and the Hands and Carts force that consisted of large numbers of paid laborers and dozens of horses and carts
• while new englanders were famed for caring for their elms, and the residents of savannah and charleston their live oaks, early richmonders seem to have shown little regard for trees
• Shockoe Creek incrementally disappeared from the landscape as it was converted to the central sewer main
• "nations" of richmond - gangs of boys from various neighborhoods competing/fighting
• early on in Richmond it became apparent that there would be a distinct difference between the lower and the upper portions of town
• by 1800 the preponderance of brick store buildings along main street cause that area to be known as the Brick Row
• prior to civil war, the most affluent lived west of shockoe creek  along franklin st, close to capitol
• African Americans able to afford property and build houses congregated in the Little Africa section, later jackson Ward, between 1790 and 1860
• little Germany north of Broad on 3rd, 4rd an 5th
• many Jewish immigrants in Shockoe Valley
• Butchertown at northern end of shockoe valley
• tenements built for rent
• in the planning for Richmond, public spaces were clearly afterthoughts; for Richmond and Manchester - land outside of town marked as commons
• 1780's construction of capitol, but no official landscape or park plan, later designated as a square or park
• 1851, richmond purchases land for 4 public squares, Monroe Square, Gamble's Hill, Libby Hill, and northside of Shockoe Hill (but later sold that one)
• Col Wilfred Emory Cutshaw - late 19th - big push for parks and improvements; tree plantings; tree nursery; Chimborazo, Jefferson Park, Taylor's Hill, Riverside; monument ave monuments; Church Hill Parkway (now Jefferson Ave) - filled in ravine
• he initially advocated Lee statue at libby hill
• after his death, not a lot of progress until Central Works Admin and Works Progress Admin
• Prior to the middle of the 20th c, the use of the term "public" in public spaces applied exclusively to Richmond's white population. The exclusion of Richmond's African American minority is embodied in the Richmond slave code of 1859, which banned African Americans from Capitol Square or the City Spring unless attending a white child or elderly person or on business for a white employer. It does not appear that segregation was codified after the Civil War, but the standard of the slave code became entrenched in the custom of segregation of public spaces. African Americans interviewed for this book recalled that the only urban park to which they had access was a triangular plot on Harrison Street...
• capitol square sign, "declaring that any slave who ventures within these gates shall be liable to a punishment of 39 lashes"
• most of labor for parks from Black workers and prisoners
• national playground movement, early 20th c
• early burial grounds: St Johns, in plots near house, African ground on Broad "under a steep hill" by Shockoe and frequently flooded, later Potter's Field, on another hillside by another creek Bacon's Quarter Branch, later in same area, the Phoenix Burial Ground? Jewish burial ground on Franklin Street, later others, Shockoe Hill Burial Ground 1822 also near Bacon's Quarter Branch
• Evergreen for Blacks, 1891
• Harvies family est. burial ground in Harvie's wood area of Belividere, later Holly Wood
• confederate not allowed to be buried in federal cemeteries
• "Rural" cemetery movement - not rectilinear, but curving with lay of land, picturesque, etc
• mid 19th c. - Holly Wood, Oakwood, others for Catholics
• Memorial Day thought to have developed in north during the war
• several "famous" people disinterred and brought to Hollywood, James Monroe, Jeff Davis in 1893
• April 2, the day confederates evacuated Richmond, a memorial day for Blacks
• also famous burials big events, John Jasper reinterred from Barton Heights to Woodland Cemetery in 1918
• Maggie Walker's death in 1934, thousands followed from 1st African Baptist to Evergreen
• central va had become known for poor agricultural management in the early 19th c.
• Roselawn - flour mill and ice harvesting - a plantation, later part of Byrd Park
• Boscobel - plantation, slave operated granite quarry between 1836 and 1857 - later part of Forest Hill Park
• Reveille 1791 plantation on Westham Turnpike (cary street) extensive ornamental gardens
• the term park derives from the english concept of a wooded enclosure for deer
• countryside male gatherings, to play "quoits" or race horses or duel or hunt
• Calvert Vaux and Frederick Law Olmstead leading the american parks movement, want to connect urban core with peripheral parks via greenways or "parkways"
• Cutshaw's "Trees of the City"
• 1890 Maj James Dooley and Sallie May Dooley buy Crenshaw's Farm and start "Maymont"
• granite masonry known as "spall work" - used by CWA/WPA all over the place
• the total public space open to African Americans by 1943 amounted to around 75 acres of a 1054 acre richmond recreation and parks system
• 1888 electric streetcar, encouraged suburban development
• Lewis Ginter commissioned Olmstead to design Sherwood Park; unimplemented prob due to 1895 depression
• Ginter Park, Barton Heights, Highland Park incorporated as towns in 1906
• in 1900 about 2/3rds of 120,000 people in greater richmond lived in suburbs
• major annexations: 1906, 1914, 1942
• Westham suburb, part became UofR, launched career of Charles Gillette, leading garden designer
• John Nolen - Windsor Farms
• Samuel Mordecai, 1850, "What would not some cities give for the privileges that we have thus abused"

The Old Stone House

Richmond's The Old Stone House: Its History and How It Became the Edgar Allan Poe Museum - Rose Marie Mitchell

   This is me just trying to get more insight into Richmond Hill's history. Was anything built up on the hill before John Coles' "mansion" and the church? Surely some wooden structures right? Was there logging? hunting? pasture?
   Jacob Galt Ege lived in the house still standing. Perhaps with inventories from Jacob Jr, Samuel, and Jacob Galt Ege, my friend and coworker P, who is an amazing historian and genealogist, can put together some family info about the Black folks enslaved and living in the house during the Ege ownership.


notes

• circ 1644 Fort Charles on north side of river, moved to southside 1646
• "even though there had been a trading site at the falls for many years, Richmond did not grow until the troubles with the Indians reached a certain degree of peace about 1659 and the power and influence of William Byrd I..."
• Stegge Jr 1652 800 acres patent on north side of James (?)
• Stegge Sr to VA in 1632, merchant and ship owner, divided time b/w VA and London, seems to have played both sides in civil war years
• Stegge and Byrd memorial marker in Manchester
• big four mills - Gallego, Haxall Mills, largest in country until after civil war
• at incorporation, Richmond pop about 250
• half acre lots cost 7lbs, "required" to build a house within a few years
• "Byrd also gave the vestry of Henrico parish "any pine timber that can be found on that side of Shockoe Creek and the woods for burning bricks into the bargain"
• Mayo a surveyor in Barbados b4 coming to RVA in 1723 with brother Joseph
• Byrd trying to attract Germans to his land in "Roanoke;" didn't work out too well, but many Germans came to Richmond
• Jacob Ege, 1713-1784, came from Wertemburg via Philly, tailor then cooper
• perhaps Ege buys lot32 from John Gringet in 1742, was old stone house already there? or built by Ege?
• owned enslaved workers; 1784 earliest tax book from Richmond; Frank trained as a silversmith with Jacob Jr, who trained with bro-in-law Gabriel Galt, who also owned enslaved people
• Jacob, Gabriel and others wanted Masonic hall, fund raised, finished in 1787
• Jacob Jr - 19 enslaved people in will
• Galt's Tavern, northwest corner of E and 19th, place of much business
• John Enders and Sally (Sarah) Ege married in OSH 1814
• "Several of Enders's slaves burned down all the buildings between 21st and 22nd street when they found that his will did not set them free as they had expected. Another slave was the center of a story in the Baltimore Sun for 27 May 1843. The news in Richmond was that a slave, the property of John Enders, was tried for stealing a box of tobacco, found guilty and sentenced to be hung on the last Friday in June"
• 1786, enslaved man, Ben, buys freedom from Samuel Ege and other family members who jointly own him
• make a copy of geneologies and inventories
• Falls Plantation house was stone with chimney squarely in middle
• where did OSH stones come from? most people say from ballast stone discarded
• legendary history says stones came from Powhatan's house or Fort Charles
• dendrochronological study suggested built about 1754
• false - not used as Washington's headquarters
• story of British Calvary galloping down church hill, "the most beautiful sight"
• 1824 Marquis de Lafayette revisited Richmond, and stopped b OSH; hoped to see Samuel Ege, who had been a commisary with him; Poe was part of honor guard that followed Lafayette
• R. Lyman Potter - "The Wheelbarrow Man"
• 1890's "Revenue in the form of an entrance fee came to Julia Isaacs from the curious who wanted to see the few Washington souvenirs she had inside. During this time an energetic, young, glib-tongued Negro boy acted as the tour guide. His gift for the gab had him entertaining the visitors with the stories which found their way into the History booklet."
• 1921 - Archer and Annie Boyd Jones leases OSH from APVA to renovate it and create Poe Memorial
• All of Poe's working or living places in Richmond have been demolished. Left standing today in the city are only three homes belonging to people who were important to Poe while he was in Richmond - Elmira Shelton's house, the Adam Craig house, Jane Craig Stanard's birthplace and Talavera"

Sentinel on the Hill

Sentinel on the Hill: Monte Maria and the One Hundred Years - Monastery of the Visitation, 1966, Richmond, VA

Who wrote this? I suppose the research was a collaborative effort, but the writing voice sounds individual. There's one anecdote that seems as if the author is writing about herself in the third person, but now I can't find it; it's a personal little remembrance by "a young sister" who received advice from a named older sister.

Is the magnolia tree we have the same as the "giant" magnolia mentioned many times here? It's possible, and H is sure that it is, but I'm inclined to say no. Its current position doesn't seem to match the descriptions.

There's got to be more pictures, somewhere, of the grounds and buildings, especially during the school days...right? I'd especially love to see the makeshift chapel inside the "old mansion," any pictures of the "slave quarters" transformed into a dormitory (said to be wooden), and after the destruction of the old house - the new cloistered porch in byzantine style with arches.

Only three employees are mentioned by name, Anderson Early, Earsell Jeffers, and Old Mr. Martin, but at least one other "laundress" is mentioned, as well as other contract workers. Is there a way to find out how many folks were regularly employed over the years?

notes

• The past, the present, are not only here embodied in bookform, but as a living fact
• God is found in all things, great or small. The spirit of the visitation is one of this simplicity.
• Bishop McGill bought a piece of cornfield beyond the city limits (later the cathedral)
• "Bishop McGill purchased at a cost of $15,000 from Thomas Ellett, executor of Loftin N. Ellett, the half square on Church Hill fronting on the south-side of Grace Street and extending from 22nd to 23rd streets with an old-fashioned but comfortable wooden residence thereon"
• wrote to Venerable Mother Mary Paulina Millard, superior of the Visitation Monastery in Baltimore
• Mother Mary Paulina, elected superior of Georgetown in 1830, 35yrs, served four triennials, later chosen foundress in Washington-Bethesda and Brooklyn. Now at 71, again a foundress for Richmond
• Mother Juliana will be Superior, and we will have six sisters...we will go from here to Richmond on a steamboat... Sr Mary Louis Williamson
• first conducted to St Joseph's Academy where the daughters of St Vincent de Paul graciously welcomed
• [this history claims house first built by John Coles, but that is mistaken, "In its great sweeping hall, Washington and Lafayette danced and made welcome]
• the stately house with its four chimneys (the sisters could never find but two), dormer windows, shingled roof
• also unnoticed by Father Hitzelberger, but breath-taking for the sisters, was the magnolia tree with its head lifted to the sky and its great branches like outstretched arms sheltering the garden and the wind-blown paths
• at noon the good Sisters of Charity came, carrying a picnic lunch for the sisters and priests
• the small chapel, a few feet square and situated on the groundfloor
• we place you like sentinels to guard our discese, to draw down graces upon our priests and people
• first students - non catholics as well as catholics, numbered  ten boarders and forty-six day students
• Miss Lizzie, our next door neighbor, spy for the federals, helped prisoners escape from libby prison (?)
• the boys tried to destroy her fruit, she won them over with ice cream party
• St Patricks built in 1859
• two schools, not four blocks apart, opening in september 1866, in richmond!
• "our school is still very poor; but persons tell us that next year it will be better, if we do not have another war, which is threatening...last week the James overflowed
• death of Mother Juliana; Mother Paulina took her back to Georgetown
• Henry Stratton gave $1000 in cash for education of Mary, Eliza, and Nellie...with this ready money the sisters were able to transform the old wooden structure that was originally the slave quarters, into a large refectory for the young ladies; and by raising the roof of the first story and adding a second, airy and attractive dormitories were constructed
• Sept 9, one year after the foundation, our Blessed Lady made a "secret Visitation" to the heart of a girl of twenty-one. Born in County Kerry, Ireland, Catherine Mary Sullivan...moved to Washington DC, first postulant in Richmond
• sometime in 1870's,  City Council permitted sisters to bury in the convent
• Bishop Gibbons at the commencment, "I am sure that nothing that has influenced you under the teachings of the good sisters will ever lead you to become in after life women's-rights women. You will never mount the rostrum to advocated the so-called rights, but in reality the abuses of women"..."among women the needle is mightier than the ballot"
• from the very beginning, grates had been erected in the chapel and parlors, with a small turn for business transactions
• 1868, twelve members, and school growing
• during these years, the fatherly physician of the sisters was Doctor Beal. The good doctor, Jewish and a very religious man, asked for no other renumeration than their prayers
• John Tabb often told the story of how proudly his 'mammy' would show him off and say, "He's the ugliest baby ever born in Virginia"
• in the garden a shrine to Our Lady
• May 8 1877, Bishop gave deed to house to sisters
• Bishop Keane 1883 bought Taylor-Palmer house gave to sisters, twenty rooms
• also "by yielding up the terraces running south to Franklin St. to the city; the city in turn, close the street which will become your property
• "...sewing for the Franciscan Sisters today. They're awful poor. They work for the colored folk and are having a hard time getting started"
• Sisters of Visitation, Franciscans, Little Sisters, Sisters of Mercy, Sisters of Charity
• "a life vowed to perfection isn't a prolonged endurance contest, as the world would have you think. No, dear children, it is a leap into the arms of God
• St Francis coat of arms: heart, pierced by two arrows - love of God and love of neighbor - love is bitter and sweet - encircled by crown of thorns
• Bishop Van and Mr and Mrs Fortune Ryan, 1894 Mrs Ryan gives check of $5000 for chapel
• in the niches - statues of the sacred heart of Jesus, Blessed Mother, and St Joseph
• Sister Bessie, remained in the monastery as a benefactress
• plays every spring in the lawn
• Living through it, who will ever forget that summer of 1914? The outbreak of World War I; the sorrowful news of the death of the saintly Pius X; the anxious waiting for the election of a new Pope - and then Benedict XV was given a world filled with sadness, gloom and fear
• started an Alumnae Association
• idea to raise funds for an academy building that would lend itself to dormitories for the boarders, a refectory, kitchen, infirmary and parlors would be included
• golden jubilee in 1916, lots of music, organ violin favorite hymns
• fidelity, prayer, sacrifice - these were the means sister employed to spread the fire of God's love over the face of the world; and these words reveal a part of her secret greatness, though hidden behind convent walls for sixty-four years. We dare say no one in the city of Richmond was better known than Sister Mary Francis de Sales Gahaghan
• sisters from all over - bavaria, dingle county kerry, mobile alabama, germany, mexico
• the visitandine life embraces the prayer of labor in which the nun moves in the atmosphere of union with God, and finds Him in her service to her neighbor
• for example, Sister Claude Simplicia, her corn bread and coffee were nationally known; Teresa Josphine - laundry, rub-and-tub with a prayer; Sister Mary Martina "queen of the walk" in her cherished henhouse and chicken run "every biddy knew her voice and the touch of her hand, and never did they fail her when she looked for an egg. those were the days when an egg was worth its weight in gold..."
• "in the folds of her mantle or tilma, the Indian mother carries her youngest"
• annual retreat when the school closed for the summer
• 1918 or so, academy had to refuse 60 applicants b/c not enough space; Bishop O'Connel raising money in earnest for new dorm
• cost $46,093.25
• Mrs Dooley tried to keep the Major from going back to his catholic faith; a priest slipped in to hear a confession close to time of death
• Mother Mary Magdalen Dooley at first only left $5000 in his will; but had to re-do will b/c she didn't have kids; and new law not clear if wife could leave to whomever she wanted; so divided up more equally
• Paray-le-Monial, vision of the sacred heart of Jesus revealed to St Margaret Mary of the visitation order
• dorm construction during the summer, supposed to be ready for the new school year; sisters helped clean up
• "she was a delightful little Rebel - always!" MMM Dooley, story of her talking with Gen Lee
• 1927 MMM Dooley died, left a lot of money to sisters
• not sure if could keep up with education standards, discussions with Bishop to close school
• secret vote, unanimous
• last graduation June 10 1927
• vocations increased
• reunion on the academy grounds
• Annecy, home of Visitation
• remodeling academy buildings
• "to restore the 'Old Mansion' so as to render it habitable and safe would have been far too costly, and it was necessary to relinquish any idea of saving even a portion of it or the grand, wide-spreading trees about it. Fain would the sisters have cried, "Woodman, spare that tree!"
• "however, upon the foundation of the Old Mansion, a cloistered porch in Byzantine style, with open arches on the south, east and north, was erected and close by a greenhouse was in the planning"
• two sisters sent to Wilmington to learn firsthand the economy of a non-teaching community
• requirements for entrance into novitiate - suitable health, body and soul; a right intention; 10-12 mo postulant; then reception of habit; one year after taking habit then temporary vows; then three years and perpetual vows
• "the most soul stirring event in the religious life is the solemn profession
• priests at St Peters and St Patricks acting as chaplains
• Then 1931, A.J Van Ingelgem,  81yr old, Belgian born priest in VA for long time, retired and became chaplain; Buddy his dog; built cottage for him; eccumenical spirit; died 1935; many other beloved chaplains
• "Father has made friends in the little Ethiopia wherein lies his domain; as one small colored boy put it, 'He's a real priest and we like him.' ??
• great crucifix in the little cemetary "God's Acre"
• plans made to transform second floor of chapel into tribune for sick and several infirmary rooms
• Sister Mary Fidelis Sanders - skilled builder and contractor; (copy that poem!); also served as portress
• Anderson Early, longtime employee, Testimonial, celebrated Jubilee; note left by grandson (copy that page)
• "Old Mr. Martin, another loyal caretaker of a later time"
• "A laundress, Earsell Jeffers, worked for the sisters for a great number of years"
• "Love Love Love" was an ending that Reverend Mother Mary Elizabeth continually used in her letters to all Visitandines to whom she had occasion to write
• the "Minor Seminary of St John Vianney" - Chester Michael one of the first rectors
•  1960, Sisters of Bon Secours arrive in Richmond, good friends with Monte Maria, help with care for sick, etc
• Queen's Party - held on eve of Epiphany, one time out of year where talk at dinner
• genesis of print shop; started in coal cellar (on the west end?); Operation Homefront; Our Lady of Thule (airbase in Greenland)
• Sister Fidelis designed and built cinderblock print shop; on may 21 1960 cornerstone laid by Mother Mary Gertrude
• Mary Louise Verleysen, Belgium, inspired by Katherine Drexel, "who devoted her life and fortune to the care of the Indian and Negro races," ends up at monte maria
• "the story of the monastery of the Visitation in Richmond has always been closely linked with the lives of the bishops of the diocese"
• "a religious of the Visitation is taught that seven-eighths, so to speak, of her time should be given to thanksgiving. For as St Francis de Sales once said, "Gratitude is your special means of union with God and with neighbor"
• a picture of Blessed Mother of Perpetual Help at top of the stairs leading to the sisters choir and around the corner from the infirmary
• Joseph Bliley devoted to the sisters
• grave setting with giant iron crucifix at one end, the giant magnolia at the opposite, and the solemn line of hemlocks
• "Old Church Hill struggles between slum and historic restoration"
• "there will always be a need for souls to consecrate themselves entirely to God, with lives separated from the world, dead to its vanities and fleeting pleasures in order that they may the more deeply and positively involve themselves in the course of its salvation

Will of Richard Adams 1800

My mother in law helped me work through some copied pages of Richard Adams' will.


...and a small piece of land adjoining which of purchased of Mr. Lewis containing in the whole about one and a half acres and all the Negros there delivered into his ??? I give to my daughter Tabitha her heirs and assigns forever a tract of land in the county of Boutetourt containing by patent 958 acres lying next the Soucet?? Springs also ten Negros their value to be fixed at the average price that the Negroes belonging to my estate shall be appraised so at the time of my death ?? one share in the James River canal I give to my daughter Elizabeth Griffin her heirs and assigns forever a tract of land in the county of Goochland which I purchased of William T?? containing 600 acres lying on Rouck? Creek and ten Negroes their value to be fixed in the same manner as those Negroes given my daughter Tabitha. I give to my three daughters Ann, Sarah, and Alice their heirs and assigns forever all my lands on Rappahanock River in the county of Essex? to be equally divided between them also all the Negroes I have delivered into their possession. I give to my son Lo? Richard his heirs executor administrators and assigns forever all the rest of my lands in the county of Henrico and all lotts and houses in the City of Richmond with all the buildings and improvements thereon, but his? devise to my son Richard is in no manner to effect or control the devise foresaid to my said wife and I do further direct that my said son Richard pay unto his mother my said wife the sum of 50lbs ??? manner of Virginia ???

...during her natural life and of the ??? that may arise from the lands and lotts. I have hereby given him  and ten Negroes there value to be fixed in the same manner as those Negroes I have hereby given my daughters Tabitha and Elizabeth Griffin. My Brother Thomas Adams devise by his last will and testament gives me all his lands in the County of Augusta and Amherst subject to the payment of his debts in ??? of his Slaves, my will and desire is that all those lands as such ??? as shall remain to me by virtue of his said devise be equally divided between all my children as shall be living at the time of my death to whom their heirs and assigns forever
I have made a Power of Attorney to my son-in-law Mayo Carrington, husband of my daughter Ann to sell and dispose of a tract of land in the County of Patrick remainder of a tract of land ??? to me by Patent containing 5470 acres the remainder of which is supposed to be about 4000 acres. My will and desire the said Mayo Carrington continue to act in selling and conveying the said lands and whatever moneys may be raised from his sales of the said lands and the remainder of any part that may not be sold I give to my daughter Ann her heirs and assigns forever. I give to my daughter Sarah her heirs and assigns forever a tract of land in the Calf Pasture which I purchased of William Wright in the county of Augusta containing by estimation 100 acres. I give to my sons Richard, John and Samuel Griffin their heirs and assigns...?

...forever my Coal Pit tract of land in the County of Goochland which I purchased of Richard Wilkinson and the coal removed in a tract of land I sold Matthew Woodson adjoining containing 97 and 1/2 acres, it being part of the original tract purchased of the said Wilkinson, subject to the payment 100lbs to each of my daughters Tabitha, Elizabeth Griffin, Ann, Sarah, and Alice as such of them as be living at the time of my death to be paid out of the first proffits that shall be made from the sale of ??Coal Pit??, the rest of my estate, Negroes, Stocks of black?? cattle, horses, and stocks of any other kind and ??? estate of whatever ?? or ?? to be equally divided between my eight children hereafter named that is to say Richard, John, Samuel Griffin, Tabitha, Elizabeth Griffin, Ann, Sarah, Alice or to such of them as shall be living at the time of my death, to them their executors administrators and assigns forever, except as much Stock as will be ??sufficient??  to Stock or Plantation for my loving Wife if she choose to settle one in that case I do hereby give her twenty cows four work horses thirty sheep and four good breeding Mares to her and her heirs forever.
Lastly I appoint my much esteemed friend Charles Carter Esq. of Shirley,  Peter Lyon Esq of Hanover County my three sons Richard John and Samuel Griffin, William Marshall and George W. Smith Executors of this my final will and testament (written with  my own hand and hereby revoking all those wills....??? made....testament

...hand?? and affixed my seal this 30th day of January 1800
Richard Adams
Signed Sealed and Published
in the presence of Willaim Smith, Bowles Cooke (??Goche), Wm Dandridge?Bandrige?, Joseph Seldin, ????Virginia?
At a General Court held at the capital in the City of Richmond the 4th day of November 1800, this will was proved the oath of Bowler Cooke, Wm Dandrige, Joseph Seldin, ??? thereto and ordered to be recorded.
Peter Lyons Esq, Richard Adams, Samuel G. Adams, William Marshall and George W. Smith executors in the signed??said?? will named this day in court renounced the executorship thereof in the 14th day this same month John Adams another executor in the said will named this day appeared in court renounced his executorship thereof and Charles Carter the other ?? having henceforth also renounced his executorship of the same on the motion?? said John Adams who made oath and together with Mayo Carrington, Richard Adams, George W. Smith, Samuel Adams, Wm Marshall his ??securities?? ??enclosed?? into and acknowledged their bond in the penalty of one hundred thousand dollars conditioned as the ??directs certificate is granted him for obtaining letters of administration of the estat of the said Richard Adams ??? with the said will annexed?? in due form
Wilson Allen

The Disordered Mind

The Disordered Mind: what unusual brains tell us about ourselves - Eric Kandel

What's the angle?
   Kandel is a neuroscientist and writer, whose work on learning and memory led to a Nobel Prize. He's also quite the art buff, and has written extensively about art and creativity. I loved this book, and his writing. It is textbooky: deliberate (he starts each chapter with a brief outline, then finishes with a brief summary), clear syntax and pace, lots of vocabulary - which he defines along the way. Only it isn't 1,000 pages with tiny cramped type, thank goodness. I especially enjoyed his careful combination of psychological and neurological research. The disciplines need each other, he stresses, and need to find some common language.

What is depression?
   Kandel writes that "depression is probably not one but several different disorders, with different degrees of severity and different biological mechanisms." Later in his discussion he describes depression and bipolar disorder as disruptions of the "connections between the brain structures responsible for emotion, thought, and memory." More or less, though, he proceeds without a definition of depression; I guess he basically assumes the DSM criteria. 
   He doesn't spend time trying to distinguish between "normal" down-times and depression episodes, or between grief and depression, or between environmental and biological "triggers." He's interested in a biological analysis of what depression looks like in action, in the brain, and he highlights the research of Helen Mayberg, who has identified a sort-of neural "circuit" for depression. Mayberg focuses on several "nodes" of this circuit, especially "cortical area 25." Kandel also mentions promising research into the stress-response system, the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis.
   He doesn't specifically hypothesize that one day, doctors will diagnose depression biologically rather than psychologically, but we could assume that would be theoretically possible, based on his vision of a more complete convergence of the two disciplines. More likely, in the nearer future, neuroscientists and geneticists will predict more and more accurately someone's risk for becoming depressed.

What are the genetics of depression?
   He doesn't say much about this, just that the "understanding of the genetics of depression and bipolar disorder is still in the early stages." He does cite some research into the likelihood of depression for an identical twin whose counterpart has depression, (40%) as compared to siblings (less than 8%), as compared to the general likelihood of having depression (6-8%).

How can you treat depression?
    Kandel doesn't recommend anything, but is optimistic about the ability of neuroscience to analyze the efficacy of drugs and therapies with new imaging techniques and animal models. He's also optimistic about the ability of scientists to identify new and better ways to intervene in the neural circuit(s) of depression.


notes

• modern studies of consciousness and its disorders suggest that consciousness is not a single, uniform function of the brain; instead, it is different states of mind in different contexts
• Philippe Pinel (late 18thc) - argued that psychiatric disorders strike people who have a hereditary disposition and who are exposed to excessive social or psychological stress
• Santiago Ramon y Cajal (late 19thc): cell has four parts
• body
• dentrites (receptors)
• axon (long arm)
• presynaptic terminal (synapse is area b/w terminal and dendrite)
• dynamic polarization - info flows only one way (from dendrite to body to axon to terminal)
• action potential - potential voltage between outside (+) and inside (-) cell body 
• when cell "fires" the ion channels open and charge switches
• action potential is all or none
• signal intensity is determined by number or frequency of "fires"
• can divide genetic illnesses into two groups: simple (Mendelian?) or complex
• Identical twins
• autism 90%, bipolar 70%, schiz 50%, depr 40%
• siblings
• 20%, 5-10%, 10%, <8%
• general pop
• 1-3%, 1%, 1%, 6-8%
• copy number variations - sections deleted or copied
• de novo mutations
• arise spontaneously in sperm
• number of mutations increases with paternal age
• 20 yr old - avg of 25 mutations; 40 yr old - avg of 65 mutations
• recent study revealed that teens with autism have too many synapses (not enough synpatic pruning)
• de novo mutations occur more frequently in genes that code for synaptic proteins
• as Darwin first pointed out, emotions are part of a preverbal system of communication that we share with other mammals
• Kraepelin used same diagnostic criteria from general medicine
• what are symptoms?
• what is course of disease?
• what is final outcome?
• he distinguished b/w disorders of thought and disorders of mood; dimentia praecox and manic-depressive illness
• the average length of remission in major depression is about three months
• depression is probably not one but several different disorders, with different degrees of severity and different biological mechanism
• hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis
• excessive concentrations of cortisol destroy synaptic connections between neurons in the hippocampus, the region of the brain that is important in memory storage, and neurons in the prefrontal cortex, which regulates a person's will to live and influences a person's decision making and memory storage
• the amygdala determines what emotion is recruited, and the hypothalamus carries it out
• Helen Mayberg: neural circuit of depression has several nodes, two of which are particularly critical
• cortical area 25 (subcallosal cingulate cortex) - thought, motor control, and drive come together; also rich in neurons that produce serotonin transporters - proteins that remove serotonin from the synapes (these transporters are very active in depressed people)
• right anterior insula - receives info from senses about physiological state and helps generate emotions to respond
• serotonin and dopamine are modulatory transmitters - tunes whole circuits or regions
• mediating neurotransmitter - acts directly on target cell (excitatory or inhibitory)
• modulatory - fine-tunes action of mediating neurotransmitters
• studies of depression suggest that whenever area 25 becomes hyperactive, the components of the neural circuit concerned with emotion are literally disconnected from the thinking brain, leading to a loss of personal identity
• Freud's three key observaions
• children have sexual and aggressive behavioral instincts
• children suppress and render unconscious the conflicts between early needs and prohibitions, as well as early traumas
• the patient's relationship with the therapist reenacts the patient's early relationship (transference), and plays a central role in the therapeutic process
• Mayberg - used electrodes to slow firing rate in area 25
• about 25% of people with major depression go on to experience a manic episode
• differences in the brains of depressed and manic states have been difficult to document
• understanding of the genetics of depression and bipolar disorder is still in the early stages...they disrupt the connections between the brain structures responsible for emotion, thought, and memory
• the emerging view of schizophrenia as a neurodevelopmental disorder that, unlike autism, manifests itself later in life has arise from the considerable genetic research done on the disease
• positive symptoms of sch. - disordered volition and thinking
• negative symptoms - social withdrawal and lack of motivation
• many typical antipsychotics act by blocking dopamine receptors
• may involve problems in serotonergic and histaminergic pathways, as well as in dopaminergic pathways
• in schiz, synaptic pruning appears to go haywire during adolescence (too much pruning going on)
• polymorphism, common variation - more than 1% of world's pop; rare variation, or mutation, is less than 1%
• autism, schiz, and bipolar share some genetic variants
• about 30% with 22q11 deletion syndrome are diagnosed with psychiatric disorders
• overexpressed D2 receptors
• memory is the glue that holds our mental life together
• Larry Squire - two major memory systems
• explicit or declarative - conscious memory
• implicit or non-declarative - motor and perceptual skills, automatic
• both kinds can be stored short term or long term
• alzheimers, parkinsons, huntington - protein folding disorders, protiens clump up, kill neurons
• Alois Riegl - the beholder's share, creative process involved in viewing art
• creativity related to the lifting of inhibitions
• left and right hemispheres inhibit each other; damage to left side can actually enable more creative action of right side
• almost 30% of people on the autism spectrum exhibit special skills in music, memory, numerical and calendar calculations, drawing, or language
• creativity doesn't appear to be related to IQ
• sensory feedback neurons - create internal sense of body and relative position of limbs - proprioception
• in the broadest sense, the task of every circuit in the nervous system is to add up the total excitatory and inhibitory information it receives and determine whether to pass that information along. Sherrington called this principle "the intergrative action of the nervous system."
• prion - misfolded precursor protein - they self-propagate, cause other proteins to misfold
• emotions are states of readiness that arise in our brain in response to our surroundings
• the study of emotions and moods helps reveal the porous boundaries between unconscious and conscious mental processes
• 1st step of emotion - unconsious and outward; 2nd step - subjective and internal
• emotions classified along two axes
• valence - how good or bad something makes us feel on a spectrum from avoidance to approach
• intensity - degree of arousal
• four key areas for emotion
• hypothalamus - executor of emotion; controls instinctive behavior
• amygdala - orchestrates emotion; links unconscious and conscious aspects of an emotional experience
• striatum - habits
• prefrontal cortex - evaluates whether a particular emotional response is appropriate; interacts with and exerts some control over amygdala and striatum
• direct and indirect pathways to the amygdala
• emotion so important in decision making and morality; directs and narrow choices
• all positive or pleasurable emotions traced to dopamine
• a reward is any object or event that produces approach behavior and leads us to sped attention and energy on it
• heritability of addiction moderately high: roughly 50%
• addiction - pleasure decreases while memory/habit conditioning strengthens
• pharmaceutical companies have devoted very little effort to developing drugs to treat addiction
• sex and gender identity are determined separately, at different times in the course of development
• sex
• chromosomal - 23rd pair xy or xx
• anatomical - external genitalia and other visible differences
• gonadal - presence of male or female gonads - testes or ovaries
• gender specific behaviors triggered in different ways - humans particularly sensitive to visual and auditory cues, a fact successfully exploited by the pornography industry
• the neural circuits that control the gender specific behavior of each sex are present in both sexes
• sexual dimorphisms visible in the brain
• greater variation within each sex than between sexes
• since sexual differentiation of the genitals takes place in the first two months of pregnancy and sexual differentiation of the brain starts in the second half of pregnancy, these two processes can be influenced independently, which may result in transsexuality
• those who identify as transgender in adolescence almost always do so permanently
• a nucleus or cluster or neurons in hypothalamus that contains mating neurons and fighting neurons and then some that can be involved in either
• consiousness
• level of arousal
• content of processing
• Searle - three key aspects of consiousness
• qualitative feeling
• subjectivity
• unity of experience
• reticular activating system - wakefulness
• Bernard Baars - global workspace theory; widespread dissemination of previously unconscious info
• without a good psychology of the conscious state we can't make progress in the biology of broadcasting information, and without the biology we will never understand the underlying mechanism of consiousness
• percept - mental representation of an object
• Benjamin Libet - readiness potential (before an action)
• the process of initiating a voluntary action occurs rapidly in an unconscious part of the brain; however, just before the action is begun, consciousness, which comes into play more slowly, approves or vetoes the action
• Kahneman - fast and slow thinking
• neurology and psychiatry will merge into a common clinical discipline that focuses increasingly on the patient as an individual with particular genetic predispositions to health and disease

A Virginia Family

A Virginia Family and Its Plantation Houses - Elizabeth Langhorne, K. Edward Lay, William D. Rieley

   This tells the story of several generations of Coles' in Virginia and the houses that they lived in. The authors' familiar and sometimes nostalgic tone was difficult to stomach, but it seemed to come from their sympathy and fondness for the Coles. Perhaps such sympathy is essential to analyzing the motivations and actions of historical characters?
   The enslaved Africans, however, were only peripheral characters in this telling. How they helped to build these houses, the time and tasks of maintenance, how the enslaved people would have interacted with the buildings day-to-day, their role in the development of the Cole's gardens, the details of their cash crop labor - all these questions went unanswered, but seem to me very important to an analysis of the Coles' history and their building habits. The authors did discuss slavery frequently, but mostly in economic terms - which is important and helpful, but insufficient to reach their stated goal of creating a "close-up view of four generations of one family of antebellum Virginia" and "a picture of plantation society." Only in Edward's story is there a Black character presented as a person, with mind and motivation, Ralph Crawford.
   I read this book to learn about John Coles the immigrant, but the meat of it has to do with his son, John II and his crew. In any case, it's a treasure chest of art and architecture and social history. I wish these authors had put their many talents into a fuller analysis of plantation life and building.

Profile of John Coles

• born circa 1705 to Walter Coles and Alice Philpot in Enniscorthy, Ireland
• grew up in the merchant class? His father was "port reeve" for 30 years in Enniscorthy
• Immigrated in 1730's?
• married Mary Ann Winston, daughter of Isaac Winston, a member of Cedar Creek Meeting
• 1739 appointed "Processioner," one who walks the bounds of property lines
• May 28, 1741, dines with Byrd II, not sure which house
• "Commissioner of the Peace"
• April 29, 1741, his request to ship 1500 lbs wheat to Lisbon is denied
• Growing tobacco also
• Also cattle, hogs, and horses - for profit?
• Spring 1742, proposes in Henrico Co. Council meeting that the collection of houses on the James by the falls should be incorporated as Richmond
• starts (or receives from inlaws?) plantation along Fork Creek in Louisa Co, near confluence with S.Anna River, near Fork Creek Meeting and his wife's family
• other lands: along Hunting Creek and Black Walnut Creek near the Staunton River (this may have been an active plantation by the time of his death); also in Brunswick Co along Staunton River, also in Albermarle Co on Green Mountain
• bought 15 plots from Byrd II in Richmond, as well as acreage north and along Gilly's creek
• builds "first house on Church Hill;" faces south with a view of the river
• On the vestry, appointed warden and building chairman
• Enslaved Africans in his will, "with all their future increase"
• Primus ("of Fork Creek")
• Phebey ("of Fork Creek")
• Three of their children "names not known to me"
• Cloe
• Beck
• Gabriel
• Primus Jun (Junior?)
• Billy
• Doll
• Lucy
• Jemmy
• Jenny
• Cate
• Abram
• Tamar
• Will
• London
• Dublin
• Nan
• Moll
• St. John
• Betty
• Tabey
• Sebrey
• Richmond
• Wexford
• England
• Phillis
• Bristol
• Sampson
• Scotland
• Cate
• Her young child
• Hannah
• Peter
• Bowston
• Scotland's child
• Dublin's child
• Ireland
• Harry
• Ceasar
• Pharoah
• Tom
• Aggy
• Sharlott
• Sarah
• Children
• Walter 1739
• Sarah Muter 1741
• Mary Tucker 1743
• John 1745
• Isaac 1747
• Friends mentioned in will, to oversee will
• Col Peter Randolph
• Isaac Winston Junr
• Col William Randolph
• wife Mary and brother Williams executors
• died 1747, buried at St John's "under the church"

notes

• on May 28, 1741, we find him dining with William Byrd, perhaps in Coles's own new house
• it was the first house built on Church Hill
• during this period, roughly between 1730 and 1750, planters were crossing the tide line, flocking in numbers into the new Piedmont country
• from the Journal of the Council of VA, which, on April 29, 1741 rejected Coles's request that he be allowed to ship his wheat to Lisbon
• Land and slaves went together
• The land that Coles favored most seems to have been in Lunenburg Co (now Halifax) on the Staunton River
• also land in brunswick co and albermarle
• fork creek, near Anna, near Fork Creek Meeting house, seemed to be home plantation
• possible claim house erected at other holdings, simple  log cabin
• it was coles, in fact, who stood up in the henrico county council meeting in the spring of 1742 and proposed that the small collection of houses on a river should be incorporated as the city of Richmond
• bought the most lots from byrd
• his house chosen by benedict arnold for barracks
• "at the time of his majority in 1769, Isaac was already established as a planter on his father's land in Halifax Co. He was glad to sell his Richmond property to his father's old friend, Col. Richard Adams."
• supposed to have view of river and town; Adams describes flood of 1771 from the porch of his house
• the names of slaves whom John Coles II inherited from his father echo the ties to the old world: S. John, Betty, Tabey, Sebrey, Richmond, Wexford, England, Phyllis, and Bristol.
• the existence of a Coles Rolling Road mentioned in the Albermarle Co Road Orders of 1791 and 1792 indicates that at least during the first years, slaves rolled the hogsheads of tobacco to a point on the James River, whence they could be floated on the flat-bottomed bateaux to the collection point at Westham
• bought a little land from neighbor John Fortune, who was a free black
• ...[Rebecca Travis (motherinlaw)]she paid her own way, as so many widowed and single women did, through the hire of slaves in her possession; many of them accompanied her to her soninlaws plantation
• financial/currency problems around revoluntion. Andrew Drummon, "that you intend, my good sir to lay out the vile trash, which we call money - in young Negroes is wisely determined, everybody's doing the same with us, and that there has been so many belonging to the absent Tories sold..."
• such large acquisitions of land required additional slaves. "required"?
• slave cabins at monticello - 12x14 ft, wooded, earthen floor, wooden chimney perhaps standing a bit apart so that it could be torn loose
• at all the coles houses we find english yew trees, a distinguishing feature of their gardens like the mayduke cherries of their orchards
• watson was paid in beef, pork, bacon, a bottle of rum, a bottle of brandy, a pound of wool, and eight days work of George
• read Memoirs of a Monticello Slave, Isaac
• pinion - small additional wing
• "It is my wish that my old and faithful servant Sally Carr, Fanny and Peter shall have the selection of their masters among my children"
• Virginia custom no longer followed the english law of primogeniture
• 1793, John still paying bounties on wolves, Isaac goes off to william and mary
• punkah, the great fan hung over the diningroom table and operated by a Negro boy pulling a rope, standing out of sight in the back hall
• In 1827 [John III], for example, the plantation showed a profit of 4572.79, about half of which came from the sale of tobacco. In this year he was working with thirty-seven slaves.
• Isaac was working Enniscorthy with thirteen slaves of his own and eighteen of his mother's, yielding in 1809 the not small return of 4340 for the year's work
• new law that freed slaves must leave the state
• 1808 Edward inherits land and slaves, 1819 travels west,
• at the request of his family, Edward had not revealed his plans for their freedom to Ralph and others before leaving Virginia
• "How will you live if you set us free?"
• "They seldom speak of their freedom," Edward noted, "without speaking, and that too rather in a consequential way, of their lands"
• Edward moves to Philly, Edward's son Robert fights for south and dies; Edward heartbroken
• "the age of the plantations had come to an end; of that past era only the buildings, and perhaps a lingering tradition, remain"   ??
• "it is, not one family alone, but a whole vanished culture that these houses represent" ??