Pat Bertram is the author of Grief: The Inside Story – A Guide to Surviving the Loss of a Loved One and Grief: The Great Yearning, “an exquisite book, wrenching to read, and at the same time full of profound truths.” Bertram is also the author of the suspense novels Unfinished, Madame ZeeZee’s Nightmare, Light Bringer, Daughter Am I, More Deaths Than One, and A Spark of Heavenly Fire.
To learn the tarot and to get familiar with the various decks I inherited from my brother, I’ve been picking a card every day, and then researching the meaning. To get the best use of such an undertaking, a person needs to ask a question, though it isn’t necessary. My question — when I remember to ask it — is always, “What do I need to know today?” I find when I don’t ask the question, the card reflects my worries more than anything else. When I do ask . . . well, sometimes I get advice and sometimes not, but it’s hard to figure out from a card what I need to know especially if I don’t know what I need to know because the cards can only tell me what I already know since I am the one interpreting them.
Still, the advice I glean is sometimes spot on, sometimes too general to be useful, and is often something I already I know about me or my life. (I haven’t yet figured out how to discover that which I don’t know about my secret inner workings, even though learning such things is supposedly the best use of the tarot.)
The one suggestion that comes up over and over again in my daily one-card reading is to trust my intuition, trust my intellect, and to stay true to myself. I can’t help but equate this advice to certain current events since my intuition — and intellect — are both at odds with what most other people think, so I tend to doubt myself.
Despite the lack of true knowledge from the tarot about what I need to know each day, it’s still an interesting exercise. Maybe it will open my mind up to this intuition I am supposed to trust. If not, at least the question helps me focus on the day and what I might glean from it.
Forgetting the cards and what they might tell me, I’m curious as to what you might tell me — me specifically, or me as a member of the human race — what I need to know today.
So, what do I need to know today?
What do you need to know?
***
My latest novel Bob, The Right Hand of God is now published!
What if God decided to re-create the world and turn it into a galactic theme park for galactic tourists? What then?
Before the election, I talked with a friend one day about all the lies and cheats and deceptions. Like most people, she knew knew these tactics existed, but since she believed the lies told by the alphabet newscasters, she wasn’t aware there was another side.
I don’t often monopolize the conversation, but every once in a while, someone finds my “on” button, and I hold forth. Much of the truth of this past election was hard to find, but if one read more than an article or two, and if one read articles that went against what one happens to think at any given moment, it was a lot easier to piece things together. Also, I’ve studied such things most of my life — people often downplay the unpalatable truth with a contemptuous sneer of “conspiracy theory,” but the truth is, a conspiracy is merely something people in power do behind your back. And politics is full of back door, back room, back stabbing deals that we are not privy to, and if we do happen to stumble on the truth, well, then, they dismiss it by saying it’s just another conspiracy theory or fake news or whatever damning name they want to call it.
That particular day, however, I’d watched the news with her, watched the newscaster show a clip of an interview, then listened to her turn the person’s words upside down to prove a completely different point, then asked a second interviewee a question that would again make a mockery of the truth. The two of them talked about the horror of the event as if it had actually happened, rather than being a total fabrication.
Since I don’t watch the news, this took me aback. That they didn’t even pretend to hide their reprehensible behavior was too much for me. Did they really think we were such fools as to not hear what we originally heard?
Apparently so. Anyway, that got me started.
The friend listened agog as I explained not what we had just seen but also some of the subtle — and not so subtle — lies we’ve been told, explained how they vilified some players while beatifying others, and even explained some of the historical background leading up to this particular political mess. When I realized what I was doing, I apologized.
She said, “I like listening to you talk.” She asked me how I knew everything I did, including all the pieces that went together to make up my books. Then she said, “You must have gone to school for a long time.”
The truth is, I didn’t go to school for a long time. In fact, I have far less formal education than just about anyone I know, but I’ve spent a lifetime reading and researching, listening and thinking to make up for the lack. Even more, I almost never watch television. I didn’t grow up watching like most people of my generation did because my father wouldn’t get one. He wanted us to be independent thinkers, which kind of backfired on him. He wanted us to independently come to the same conclusions he did, and he was appalled to discover that we all turned out to think independently of him.
But that’s beside the issue. The real issue is that a lot of knowledge is hidden in books. Not school books or text books, but . . . books. All kinds of books, fiction and non-fiction. If one never reads, one never learns anything but what they are fed.
The first time I realized that tales hid truth was in grade school. For an English assignment, we had to create a newspaper. I thought it would be fun to make the news stories about various fairy tales and nursery rhymes, and in trying to find things to say about these bits of folklore, I happened to come across a book that gave the origins and meanings. And wow! What an eyeopener!
And so began my quest for the truth hidden in books.
If I have ever had a life-long passion, it’s with the truth, reading, seeing that which is hidden that we’re not supposed to know. So far, not all the truth is suppressed, and I’m not sure it can be, but it’s a lot harder to find than on a lighted screen.
I can’t say knowing the truth — at least as much of it as I do — has made me happy. It’s made me more of an outcast than anything (except during my years with Jeff — he was the only other seeker I had ever met, and together we learned a lot). But still, I’d rather know the truth — and if I don’t, I prefer searching for it — even if people don’t agree with me. Sometimes, their disagreement leads me to other paths. So far, none of these paths have set me on a totally different course, though a lot of the paths augmented the ones I was already on.
Searching for truth is like this find the hidden objects game I’ve been playing — it’s about learning patterns, seeing the truth as deviation from the pattern as well as seeing the truth in the pattern.
See what I mean about my “on” button? I had no intention of going into all that, but once I got started, I just kept going.
Luckily for you, I also have an off button.
***
My latest novel Bob, The Right Hand of God is now published!
What if God decided to re-create the world and turn it into a galactic theme park for galactic tourists? What then?
I’m seceding from the world at large and planning on disappearing into make-believe worlds. There are simply too many horrible or stupid or insulting conversations about the election in the real world, the seemingly most innocuous being one of the worst, for me. People are saying that this was a contest between two men and should not be affecting our relationships with one another. While I might agree with the second part (to the extent that people keep their insults and aggressiveness to themselves), I definitely do not agree with the first part. To say it’s a contest between two men makes it seem like a high school presidential election where the most popular person wins. Many of our national elections have been like that, with nothing at stake, but this election is historic. It was not a choice between two men, but between two entirely different directions for the country to take — between freedom and subjugation, between choice and control, between more government and less government.
People on both sides are appalled that so many people voted for the other side, which means, again, that it was not about two men but about all of us.
So, I’m seceding. Or maybe it’s more that I receding. Either way, I’m finding comfort in make believe worlds.
I’ve got books, my yard (though I had to give up on digging up the grass in my garden because the tops of my feet hurt from all that unfamiliar work), and I’m immersing myself in one of those silly hidden objects game where you search for . . . you guessed it . . . hidden objects. I play my own game (which should come as no surprise to anyone who knows anything about me). The game itself is free, but you are expected to buy “energy” (the coin of the realm) with real money as well as various other artifacts, but my game is to find ways of playing free. For example, if players agree to watch a commercial, they get gifts of energy and other e-delights, and I always agree — it gives me a chance to rest my eyes. They also occasionally have a side game that can be played free, as well as “happy hours.”
The game amuses me. It keeps my attention and provides exercise for my not-as-sharp-as-it-once-was memory, but it’s also an excellent example of an inflationary world. The more you play, the more energy you can accumulate, but the more energy you accumulate, the more each phase of the game costs. But, unlike in the real world, I can find ways around the inflation, such as playing the most “expensive” games during happy hour, and only playing the “cheap” games with my accumulated energy.
For now, I’d rather live in the make-believe worlds in games, in novels, and even inside my own head. At least, I don’t have to listen to lies and comments that irk me.
To set the record straight, none of the comments left here have ever irked me in any way. I appreciate every one of you and your comments. But then, this blog, in its own way, is also a make-believe world.
I joined the peace bloggers in 2012. And every November 4th since then, I have blogged for — and about — peace.
This year’s theme is “Peace in the time of quarantine.” Although I do not believe in the possibility of world peace (because war and other international conflicts are never our personal choice but are fostered by others or foisted on us by circumstances), I do believe in personal peace, in finding peace within ourselves no matter what happens to provoke us into chaos.
We tend to think of peace as a passive thing. An absence of strife. Effortless calm. Yet, when we talk of unrest and chaos (or whatever is the opposite of peace), it’s always about action, doing something, committing something — committing acts of terrorism, declaring war, fighting, rioting, tormenting, bullying.
Maybe peace is also about action, about committing acts of peace. We as individuals can’t arrange truces between warring factions, whether global or familial. We can’t bring peace to chaotic countries — ours or anyone else’s. Often the best we can do is bring peace to our own lives, arrange a truce between our inner and outer selves, find a way to ease our anger, create art (because people who are involved in creating a piece of art are also creating a space for peace), meditate or take a walk. Commit acts of peace.
It’s odd to think that this time of quarantine, which because of enforced isolation and orders to stay at home should have been a time of peace, has been one of the most violent times in recent years. But the country at large, especially the bigger cities have been ablaze with chaos.
Of course, being forced into isolation — any sort of force, actually — can’t bring about peace. It’s no wonder people were so ready to erupt into violence — isn’t that some sort of law of physics? Equal and opposite reaction and all that? On a smaller scale, victims of abuse were forced into situations where they had no escape, so for these people, instead of bringing about peace, the quarantine brought about more horror.
Apparently, I have nothing positive to say about peace in the time of quarantine, even though my own life during this time has been quiet and contemplative. I’ve managed to stay away from strife — except for occasionally getting riled up by all the lies and idiocies going on. I’ve even managed to commit acts of peace — if only by taking solitary walks, blogging, reading, enjoying a rare visit with friends.
If you don’t have a blog or think this a hopeless cause, you can still participate in this event by committing an act of peace. I hope you will.
***
Please check out my new book!
“I am Bob, the Right Hand of God. As part of the galactic renewal program, God has accepted an offer from a development company on the planet Xerxes to turn Earth into a theme park. Not even God can stop progress, but to tell the truth, He’s glad of the change. He’s never been satisfied with Earth. For one thing, there are too many humans on it. He’s decided to eliminate anyone who isn’t nice, and because He’s God, He knows who you are; you can’t talk your way out of it as you humans normally do.”
A friend invited me to go walking with her in the cemetery yesterday, and I jumped at the chance. It’s a pretty place — at least in the daytime — and even historic, containing, as it does, graves of some early settlers. It’s also free of dogs, which are becoming more of a problem all the time.
I found it interesting that yesterday was also All Souls Day, which made the trek apropos. We didn’t encounter a soul — dead or alive — as we meandered along the roads, searching for the grave of someone she knew who had recently died. Many of the graves were decorated with fake flowers. With the advent of silk flowers, I’ve wondered why there is still a market for plastic flowers, and now I know the answer — they are the flower of choice to decorate graves.
As my friend promised, there were no dogs.
With daylight savings time ended, it gets dark early here, and will continue to get darker for the next several weeks. I am so not a fan of the creeping darkness, but it’s even worse now because of working. My shift ends after sunset, and though I don’t worry about walking in the dark — it’s only two blocks on a quiet street. Besides, there’s a streetlight, and I carry a flashlight, so I’m not worried about the darkness as such. What does worry me are the dogs running loose. It’s one thing when it’s light enough for me to see them coming, another to have them approach out of nowhere.
I’ll have a stick, and even some pepper spray that someone gave me, so I should be okay. I’d heard that spraying water is even more effective, but for now, I’ll just stick with what I have and worry about other deterrents later if necessary.
I hope I remember to leave a light on in the house to make it more inviting — somehow it seems so lonely coming home to a dark house, even though I don’t notice any problem in the day.
Despite my reservations, it might be nice walking in the dark. I don’t often do that anymore — mostly because there’s no reason to. It’s too bad that there are just enough lights in town to obscure the stars because I do enjoy walking under the stars. I’ve heard that a vast number of stars are visible just outside of town, but since I don’t like driving at night (or maybe it’s that the night doesn’t like me driving), I haven’t yet explored the possibility.
I hope I don’t sound cranky. Despite unpleasant dogs roaming loose and the creeping darkness, I feel grateful for all I have — a job, a house to come home to, and friends who invite me to go walking in the cemetery.
It’s not just that today is Halloween, because no one comes to the door anyway. The next street over is where the activity is.
It’s not just that I had three big trees to plant, because I had help planting them.
It’s not just that this is the last Saturday before the election that might change our lives forever, because at this point, there’s nothing I can do about it.
It’s not just that daylight savings is ending with all the problems the time change brings because, well . . . there’s nothing I can do about that either. I could of course not change the clocks as I did (didn’t do?) one year when I was young and just deal with the wrong clocks, but since some clocks change themselves nowadays while others don’t, dealing with two different times is more confusion than I need.
It’s not just that today is another warm day in a string of warm days after the big freeze — that’s not where the pressure comes in; it’s that I had to drag out my hoses again as if we were heading toward spring rather than winter.
And oh, yeah, speaking of winter — it’s not just that winter is around the corner.
It’s that tomorrow begins a new month and I have to pick a tarot deck to use for the month. (I pick one card every day to see what it can tell me, though usually what it tells me is that it has nothing to do me with.)
Oh, my! The pressure! It’s not the same for normal people who have but one deck (or not decks at all). I have dozens of them! I suppose I could continue using the deck I’ve been using, though that one doesn’t really speak to me. Actually, none of the decks I’ve used so far seem to strike a chord, so I’ll have to keep trying out the various decks. I figure a month gives each deck a good tryout, and so here I am, back at the beginning of all this roundaboutation with me needing to pick a new tarot deck for November. I guess I’ll just close my eyes and grab one. And voila! That lessens the pressure.
(Out of curiosity, I looked up roundaboutation because MSWord says it’s not a word, and to be honest, I thought I was making it up, but it is actually a word that has been in use since the 1800s. Who knew?)
I hope your day is a lot less pressurized than mine. I’d say Happy Halloween, but I don’t know if saying that is acceptable any more or if it’s been changed to something more specific for those who subscribe to identity politics or something less specific for those who are too sensitive to deal with other people’s business. I sure as heck don’t need that kind of pressure, so I’ll just say, “Have a Happy ___” and let you fill in the blank.
Today’s tarot card was the most confusing card I ever picked. The only consensus among the various interpretations I found was that it’s a card pertaining to work or money in some way.
One interpretation said it means making money by working for the law or outside the law. The same source said it means illegal money doomed to be squandered. Also, losing a seemingly secure asset or other financial troubles as well as the worry and suffering stemming from those troubles.
Ouch. So not a good omen!
And yet other interpretations are almost diametrically opposed to the first one, such as the card signifying hard work, tasks to be accomplished, saving money rather than squandering one’s earnings. Also, the rewards of honest labor as well as prudence, industriousness, patience, perseverance, diplomacy.
Still other interpretations talk of apprenticeship and mastery, such as learning the tarot. Working hard to improve one’s skills. Sheer determination and concentration to master those skills. It also offers assurance that the energy invested in one’s development will be worth one’s while.
Since I’m still not sure there is any value to my tarot studies, that interpretation seemed specifically geared toward me, as did the final one, which suggested that it’s time for me to work at improving my health and to stay vigilant about diet and exercise.
Although I am sticking to my diet — no sweets of any kind, no fried foods, no baked goods — I have been getting lax about exercise. I find myself not wanting to walk because I’m intimidated by the cold, of all things. That doesn’t portend well for me since we haven’t even hit really cold weather yet. Luckily, I have warm coats and other cold weather gear like hats, ear coverings, gloves, but eek. I am not ready for winter.
As for the interpretations of this particular card that seemingly have nothing to do with me — it shows that the cards are truly open to interpretation. They can mean whatever anyone says they mean within certain parameters. Will that make learning the cards any easier? I don’t know. So far, I’m still taking the cards one day at a time.
Actually, I’m taking everything one day at a time, or at least I’m working on it.
Yesterday I wrote about how the country is ever more divided, and I used an example of how the move to a national popular vote will make rural areas subject to the whims of the major cities, even though those folks know nothing about the problems of rural areas. I responded to a comment left on the blog with, “those people seem to want to control everything without sense or sensibility.” And then it dawned on me — they really do want to control everything.
I thought the move to a popular vote rather than the electoral college was about the big city liberals controlling who would be president for the foreseeable — and unforeseeable — future, but it could also be about setting up a de facto government outside of the White House. Without the electoral college (or with the electoral college if the states all decide to push their electoral votes to whoever wins the popular vote as the Colorado liberals have voted to do) there would be a second national powerbase. If by any chance the liberals didn’t secure the government through votes, they could fight it with the power of the states themselves.
It seems as if this would put the “total” in totalitarianism. I don’t know if it could ever happen, but a lot of things are going on that I never thought could happen, so who knows.
It’s kind of funny, although I tend to be a centrist, able to see all sides — the best and the worst they have to offer — this current political climate is so skewed that it rocks me out of that centrism. Too many easily disproved lies have become hardened facts in many voter’s eyes, and I end up defending candidates to whom I normally wouldn’t give a single thought. (I don’t care who votes for whom, but when someone cites one of these “facts” to me as the reason not to vote for a particular person, the injustice and stupidity of it gets my dander up.)
I truly hope I can get back to my old cynical view of the world, thinking it doesn’t matter who runs what — one lying crook or corrupt politician, seemingly without sense or sensibility, is the same as another. I do know that regardless of what I think or who is elected to office, the leftists will continue their encroachment on the schools. That is where the true power lies — in the unformed minds and hearts of the young because they are the future.
Yeah, cynical for sure, but there is comfort — and perhaps even a measure of peace — in cynicism.
***
What if God decided to re-create the world and turn it into a galactic theme park for galactic tourists? Considering the mess we’ve gotten ourselves into, it might be an improvement. Or not.
More and more, the United States seems to becoming un-united, polarized by democrats vs. republicans, liberals vs. conservatives, socialists vs. capitalists, big government vs. less government, rich vs. poor, equity vs. equality, the powerful vs. the powerless, those who want to uphold the constitution vs. those who want to make it more flexible, as well as the divisions caused by the various gender and melanin issues.
More important to me since I live in a small, isolated community, is the ever-growing divide between big cities and rural areas. One issue that concerns rural folks all around the country is the push toward a popular vote. If this were enacted, not only would policies that affect rural areas be decided by major cities within the state, they’d more probably be decided in New York City and Los Angeles, with perhaps Chicago and Houston chiming in, since those are the four largest cities in the USA. The Colorado Legislature has already passed a measure that all our electoral votes would go not to the candidate the people in Colorado voted for, but to whoever won the popular vote nationally. The only reason this is not now law is that it has to be voted on by the people. If it’s passed, it would lock rural areas out of the voting process completely because their vote simply would not count.
Which brings us to another divide within the state. Colorado used to be republican, but because of the vast numbers of people moving to Denver from California and New York as well as Texas, Denver — the capitol — is now democrat while the rest of the state is republican. It doesn’t sound like it would be that much of an issue, unless you live in a county far removed from Denver and its power-hungry politicians.
The latest mess we locals been handed is that some woman legislator in Denver decided that private prisons have to go for some murky reason I’ve never been able to discover. As far as I can tell, there are only two such prisons besides one in a major city: one in this county and one in a nearby county. Both counties have about the same population — approximately 5,000 people spread out over 1,541 square miles. With agriculture pretty much dead around here, there is basically only one business that employs more than a few people and pays them well— the prison.
Because of that one crotchety woman’s campaign against these prisons, the county stands to lose millions in annual payroll, almost a million in goods and services such as utilities, and more than a million in property taxes. Those property taxes help pay for fire control, ambulance, schools, library, the senior center and various other services this town needs. Without the prison, the people who live here — already an impoverished lot, with only prison workers and a few others making a decent living — will have to pick up the slack, with higher property taxes (as well as lower property values), higher utilities, and probably a whole slew of other problems that will stem from these major issues.
The county commissioners, of course, are working to keep this prison open, but it’s a hard slog when no one in power in Denver has any clue as to what is going on in the far reaches of the state.
We’re already isolated by distance and politics and economic standards (I’m sure you figured that out since I was actually able to buy a house here when there is no way I’d ever even be able to afford to rent a room in a ramshackle house in a place like Denver). I can’t imagine what would happen to this town if Denver has its way. If they decided to keep the prison and turn it into a state-run facility, it wouldn’t solve the problem — jobs would be lost, pay would not be as great, and the property taxes would still be lost since government installations don’t have to pay taxes.
Normally, I wouldn’t write about such a local issue (or maybe I would, what do I know?) but this particular conflict seems to mirror what is happening all over the country — an ideologic divide that is so great and polarized that there seems to be no way to bridge the gap.
It used to be that we in the USA all wanted the same thing — equality, prosperity, freedom — or at least most of us did. The party lines were drawn by the difference in how people wanted to go about achieving those ends.
Now the division is created not in trying to come together to achieve the same end, but in trying to achieve completely different ends, which is exactly what is going on here.
Whatever happens, either locally or nationally, I don’t see a long-range solution. Even if the local folks can save the prison and hence the town, the greater problem — the growing polarization in the country will remain.
***
What if God decided to re-create the world and turn it into a galactic theme park for galactic tourists? Considering the mess we’ve gotten ourselves into, it might be an improvement. Or not.
Today’s tarot card pick was the sun, or as this particular deck calls it, “The Beaming Light.” That’s the only sun I get today since the real beaming light is hidden behind clouds, a rarity in these parts. Still, the sun card is sufficient since it speaks of glory, gain, riches, success, creativity, and happiness.
I like the coincidence of the sun being the nineteenth card of the major arcana and this is the nineteenth day of the month. I’m not reading anything into that coincidence because I don’t think such a fluke has happened before, so there doesn’t seem to be any meaning to such a concurrence — it’s simply time for the numbers to coincide.
There is another interesting coincidence, however, that I would like to read something into (assuming there is any truth to the tarot). I did an online reading at a tarot site today, and the final card (the likely outcome) was the sun, too.
Which means to me that the significance of the sun is doubly correct! The sun certainly is bringing brightness to my day. Although tomorrow is the official publication day, my newest book, Bob, The Right Hand of God is available for sale on Amazon right now, a day early.
Such a pleasant surprise!
You can buy the print book today and have it delivered to you in about a week. Click here to order: Bob, The Right Hand of God. Or you can buy the Kindle version today and it will appear on your Kindle tomorrow. Click here to purchase: Kindle version of Bob, The Right Hand of God.
So yes! This is definitely a day of beaming light and happiness and all the good things I could wish for myself. I’m keeping my fingers crossed that the rest of the “sun” comes true too — the glory, gain, and riches that will come from people discovering, reading, loving Bob, The Right Hand of God.
Grief: The Inside Story – A Guide to Surviving the Loss of a Loved One debunks many established beliefs about what grief is, explains how it affects those left behind, and shows how to adjust to a world that no longer contains the loved one. “It is exactly what folk need to read who are grieving.”(Leesa Heely Emotional/Mental Health Therapist & Educator ).
“I am Bob, the Right Hand of God. As part of the galactic renewal program, God has accepted an offer from a development company on the planet Xerxes to turn Earth into a theme park. Not even God can stop progress, but to tell the truth, He’s glad of the change. He’s never been satisfied with Earth. For one thing, there are too many humans on it. He’s decided to eliminate anyone who isn’t nice, and because He’s God, He knows who you are; you can’t talk your way out of it as you humans normally do.”
While sorting through her deceased husband’s effects, Amanda is shocked to discover a gun and the photo of an unknown girl who resembles their daughter. After dedicating her life to David and his vocation as a pastor, the evidence that her devout husband kept secrets devastates Amanda. But Amanda has secrets of her own. . .
When Pat’s adult dance classmates discover she is a published author, the women suggest she write a mystery featuring the studio and its aging students. One sweet older lady laughingly volunteers to be the victim, and the others offer suggestions to jazz up the story. Pat starts writing, and then . . . the murders begin.
Thirty-seven years after being abandoned on the doorstep of a remote cabin in Colorado, Becka Johnson returns to try to discover her identity, but she only finds more questions. Who has been looking for her all those years? And why are those same people interested in fellow newcomer Philip Hansen?
When twenty-five-year-old Mary Stuart learns she inherited a farm from her recently murdered grandparents -- grandparents her father claimed had died before she was born -- she becomes obsessed with finding out who they were and why someone wanted them dead.
In quarantined Colorado, where hundreds of thousands of people are dying from an unstoppable, bio-engineered disease, investigative reporter Greg Pullman risks everything to discover the truth: Who unleashed the deadly organism? And why?
Bob Stark returns to Denver after 18 years in SE Asia to discover that the mother he buried before he left is dead again. At her new funeral, he sees . . . himself. Is his other self a hoaxer, or is something more sinister going on?
Grief: The Great Yearning is not a how-to but a how-done, a compilation of letters, blog posts, and journal entries Pat Bertram wrote while struggling to survive her first year of grief. This is an exquisite book, wrenching to read, and at the same time full of profound truths.
Bertram's Blog 