Month: February 2025

And now for something completely different…Emmaüs in Carmaux

GalleryEve Neuhaus 5 Comments
Emmaüs, the big thrift store in Carmaux, is only open on Fridays.
Like all thrift stores, it’s a magical place.
I thought I’d take a break from watching the sky fall
to share some of the pictures I’ve taken there over the years.
Lots of these are available in the vintage fabric section
an old farm implement
Knitting supplies have their own area
Amazing lace
I want all the buttons, but what would I do with them?
Emmaüs is my regular source for thread
The six interior spaces have employees who set aside your choices and give you a chit on a little piece of paper. You take the chits to the cashier who tears off half and gives you back the rest so you can retrieve your items.
There are so many tempting things to take home
The linens are exquisite
Sometimes the line at the cashier takes a long time.
Sadly, Emmaus founder Abbe Pierre was accused of sexual misconduct and his name was removed from the organization.
His presence in the many Emmaus shops and charities was ubiquitous, but all the posters and busts are gone now.
His good works go on, though, regardless of his offenses.

Another frightening parallel: The July Pact

Eve Neuhaus 6 Comments

A crazy thing happened a couple weeks ago. I’d finished the first draft of Underground, the second volume of Two Suitcases, and was reading through it to check the chapter headings and dates. Imagine my surprise when I discovered that, by the stroke of a key, I’d skipped writing a whole year of history and my story.

Sure enough, I’d typed July 9, 1935 at the beginning of one chapter—and July 11, 1936 on the next. So, back to making a timeline of the history, back to my sources already on the bookshelves upstairs, back to the endlessly generous internet.

At first, I had a hard time moving forward on the missing piece. The parallels between events in Austria in the thirties and the news from America were particularly powerful as I was completing the draft, and I was in a race to finish it on inauguration day. And I did! Except for July 1935 to July 1936.

Now, I’m almost finished the missing year. It was an interesting challenge to weave the characters’ stories into the history so that they would flow nicely into the already-written part, July ’36 to March ’38. But I’m almost there. I was writing about the reception of the Nuremberg Race Laws as Musk and his team trashed USAID.

And now I’m writing about the July Pact, or or Juliabkommen, a handshake deal between Austria and Germany that took place in July, 1936. Today, while looking into it more closely, I found a blog by Elizabeth Sunflower, who also wrote a novel set in Austria in 1937. About a year ago, she posted a blog about the July Pact. It’s succinct and timely.

Here’s the link

https://elizabeth-sunflower.com/austrias-unfortunate-fate-the-july-pact-and-its-role-in-wwii/.

But wait! There’s more.

A new, virtually typo-free version of Red Vienna is now available. You can get it at https://bookshop.org/p/books/red-vienna-eve-neuhaus/21038712?ean=9781636830582&next=t&next=t or through your local independent bookstore.

(I noticed when I copied that link to bookstore.org that they are offering it at 20% off.)

Getting through hard times: a timely message from Ganesh Baba

Eve Neuhaus 26 Comments

Last Friday a friend and I went Emmaüs, the big thrift store in Carmaux, an old mining town near here. All thrift stores are magical, but this one has a particularly good record.

I headed straight for the bins of old framed pictures. I was hoping to find something to hang in a niche in the bathroom. I found it, and I also found this:

It’s a framed, hand-painted postcard. The delightful Indian gentleman riding right out of the frame is Ganesh Baba, the scientific psychedelic kriya yoga guru. He appeared in my life late in 1979, intending to stay three days. Instead, he stayed in my orbit for three years, staying three days at a time, until the dream was over.

Now, he roared back into my life on a motorbike to remind me of his core message.

Ganesh Baba was the real thing. Look him up. The Wikipedia entry is good though outdated. There is a newer, much more explicit book on Ganesh Baba and his teachings available now. Written by another student of Baba’s, Keith Lowenstein, it’s called Kriya Yoga for Self-Discovery.

Baba’s essential teachings can be encapsulated into four actions. He reminded me in my meditation today is that practicing the four will get you through the hardest of times. The full system is more complex, at least eight steps if not twelve. But the first four are what’s needed today.

Posture

Hold your head high, your spine straight, rib cage open.

There’s a reason the military and the old aristocracy made the straight back essential. It changes your perspective, among many other benefits. Your spinal cord is your antenna.

Reconnect with the physical world.

Breath

Your breath is your connection to the life force. The more air you can breath in and out, the better you will feel.

Reconnect with the biological world.

Attention

Practice controlling your attention. Meditation does this particularly well, but any serious practice, spiritual, mental, or physical. can achieve it. Those who can direct their attention are better able to maneuver in worlds beyond the physical.

Reconnect with the mental/psychological world.

Mantra

Using a mantra, a sound or phrase repeated internally or aloud, is a time-tested method for changing one’s vibration. Now more than ever, the world needs humans to raise their vibration.

OM on the in breath, OM on the out breath is simple and potent.

Reconnect with the spiritual world.

That’s it, and it’s enough. Practice each one separately and do them in combination and all together. It’s efficient and effective.

In fact, it’s magic.