It's wise to respect Gustav who, like other hurricanes, like earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, tsunami, is not an adversary to fight, but a great natural force.

Respect, prepare without and within, pivot (or run), and ask for a little grace.

Here in Lafayette, without the same kind of flood risks as New Orleans, a lot of people stick it out. But we're just 30 miles off the coast. A lot of people, including those in nursing homes, evacuate or are evacuated. My dad, his puppy and I are getting out of Gustav's way by leaving town this morning. As with every hurricane, no one really knows exactly where the storm will go this far ahead. Yet we spent yesterday afternoon moving outdoor benches and chairs in, making phone calls, preparing travel food, googling and finding maps. So, my posts may be a bit erratic this week-

I always feel for the birds and animals in the wild. They don't know what's happening. Even if they find a safe hide-out, the shrieking winds of a hurricane are so extreme, and can go on for many hours. I feel for the elderly, and for those in fragile health.

Still. A great force can offer opportunity...

From feathers, the owl;
from tears to ocean;
from seaweed to universe;
one hurricane echoes another
disaster or pivot point.
The childhood question,
the scattered bright answers
from shuttle drivers, bus riders and shooting stars;
the racing grains of dust
burn greetings through the dark.
How suddenly events vast and small fall together,
a symphony in one chime;
how subtly, how obviously
we are nudged and beckoned forward.

Sometimes a bird outside the window calls me from my bed, or the horn of a train. I dig into my bag of tricks: seaweed and gyroscopes, compasses, bamboo, rays of light, Slinkies and frogs, feathers and clouds, and see what may work for the day.

There are weeks I'm carried by a fast current, weeks I must relearn every morning how to move forward...

...coil LEAP coil LEAP coil LEAP coil LEAP...

I don't give up.

...COIL LEAP COIL LEAP COIL LEAP COIL LEAP COIL LEAP COIL...

At first it looked like a spiral of blue fishing line, or the stuff that's spooled in weedeaters. I used a stick to tug it out of the ditch. A bit thick and flat for fishing line. I carried it toward the trash can, and finally saw: Oh! It's a Slinky! A plastic Slinky.

Did you ever get your Slinky going, then set it on top of some steps and watch it descend? Coil and flip, coil and flip.

It's good to play!

From my back, I see rain,
white arrows falling.
Breathe, breathe, breathe.
Crows gather, gentle and silent
in the upper pines.

Golden Gate Park
March 2008




How beautiful this is-
and we aren't just guests
but threads within the cloth.

When face to face with the suffering of others, sometimes all you can do is listen, listen deeply. Listen to their words, listen to their silence. You can't fix the situation, but you can ease the loneliness of the pain.

And the point is to live everything.

Rainer Maria Rilke

I saw on TV Usain Bolt's beautiful 200 meter Olympic run. Wow wow wow.

There are times when the gun pops and a runner hears it and thinks 'go' and then goes.

There are times when a runner skips all the middle steps, the hearing and thinking parts. The gun pops and the runner's gone.

Thinking is a kind of brake. It keeps us from acting on impulse. A person with good judgment thinks before she or he acts.

Yet...not good for a racer.

Lightning doesn't think.

Nor do plants answering light.

First there is a mountain,
then there is no mountain,
then there is.

Mt. Rainier from Whidbey Island:

...Remember the Buddhist proverb: first there is a mountain, then there is no mountain, then there is...

The spiritual teacher Ram Dass appeared in town recently. On the radio, he was interviewed about his life, his teachings, and his foundation which promotes service projects all over the world. The interviewer was ready to sign off when Ram Dass interrupted him, "you haven't asked me the one crucial question," he said. "What's that?" said the interviewer rather incredulously. "The question my life asks is that after thirty years of devotion to the inner work, how is it that I now give myself to service? How is it that someone so devoted to the inner path comes to this place where the focus is outer -- the world, the community, the planet, the environment -- service?" "What's the answer?" asked the interviewer. "The answer is that this is the culmination of the inner work. The inner work is preparation for the work of the world -- the repair of the world, this is what we have been moving towards."

from "Then There Is (A Mountain)"
by Rabbi James Stone Goodman
http://www.jacsweb.org/article-21.html

What makes art so satisfying? Why are we designed this way? What is it that demands we arrange objects or words or paint or notes or footsteps or clay like so, like so, like so until--ah!

We are all creators.

Lafayette, Louisiana
barred owl feather


I was thinking magic diminishes, that life turns mundane and unmysterious as events settle down.

But, maybe not.





Whidbey Island, Washington
barred owl

Flight delays, a missed connection, 44th on standby list.
102 degrees, traffic jam in the sun (stop-and-go, stop-and-go).
Drizzle after dark, wet slick highway.
Rescue of a turtle in the road, bigger than a dinner plate.

from Mukilteo ferry

Salt air sings;
moon flows on waves
from now to nowhere,
white ink on black night.

Whidbey Island

Verbania

Well I went too far, so I'm waiting in the car for the Mukilteo Ferry to Whidbey Island. Late enough that there's almost no traffic or engines running. I can hear the music of a soulful band drifting from the nearby Diamond Knot Alehouse (which is also graciously granting me a little wifi). Cool, fragrant ocean air floating into the passenger window and out the driver window.

Bellingham

I hope to learn to see again with my heart.

Bellingham


It fell softly
and stopped.
A moment's grace-
rain transformed
brick to mirror.

Art by a Lafayette, Louisana resident circa 1930?

Love multiplies...

His face lit up, and he said his arthritic back had stopped hurting, and that he was going to do this warm-up every morning. He made connections to a book he'd read by Joseph Campbell. The session was impromptu, disorganized, in the living room after supper. At 78, he didn't want to wait. His hands cut sky. It was awfully beautiful.

Guadalupe River




Thank you for the red-tailed hawk outside the door, for the dozen hummingbirds, the hundreds of bees.

Thank you for friends who genuinely love me as I am.

Thank you for email from sisters.

Thank you for the elderly who pour half a Coke, and tell of dances long ago.

Thank you for those who are patient with my darkness.

Thank you for former husband's wife and husband.

Thank you for those who point out my error.

Thank you for those who notice my good.

Thank you for the jokesters.

Thank you for Fonteyn and Nureyev who brought awe to a three-year-old 35 years ago, and bring joy to me now.

Thank you for counselors, yoga, Shintaido, buddies, and the eye doctor with red hair.

Thank you for a dad who has done well.

Thank you for musicians who give truth melody and rhythm.

Thank you for the teacher who says look forward, don't look back.

Thank you for animals who show how to move forward.

Thank you for the feathers along the trail.

Thank you for gentle sons who text crazy messages.

Thank you for the wine-colored moths.

Thank you for 8 cats, for stars outside car windows.

Thank you for Kandinsky, for Structure Joyeuse.

Thank you for fragrant tea received from others, and tea to offer others.

Thank you for light that eases the bruised heart; thank you for trees.

Thank you for strong legs and lungs.

Thank you for the river that flows.

The predicted high today in Austin is 103. There have been over 40 days 100 or higher here this summer.

Thanks to my sister for sharing the following link:

http://sohowww.nascom.nasa.gov/pickoftheweek/prom_erupt.mpg

Warm-ups were sluggish this morning; the sun's heat set in early. I had little focus. A lean yellow cat kept me company.

I finished and went in, then came out to get clothes from the car.

The cat brought the lizard to my attention.

The lizard was black and gray--a desert lizard of some sort--its markings blended with the aphalt. It had long fingers and toes, and a dragon-like crest. It didn't move.

The cat patted the lizard, the lizard snapped like lightning, raced up a tree. Its markings blended with those of the bark.

The cat reached high, standing on long back legs, swatting toward the lizard; the lizard climbed to the highest branch and then went all the way out on the flimsiest limb.

The cat without a sideways glance did the same, all the way to the lizard.

The lizard let go--just missed my head--dropped to the ground, darted into a hole among some rocks.

The cat came down the tree trunk, as agile as he had been climbing up, and hurried to the rocks, investigated the hole, the rocks around it, the hole again.

The lizard was out of reach.

The cat now was panting, his mouth in a grimace. He ducked under the car.

I found a bottle of water--it was already over 95 degrees out--and poured some in the cap.

The cat didn't understand until I touched some drops onto his face and paws.

He drank the water, I poured more into the cap, he drank more.

To watch Rudolf Nureyev and Margot Fonteyn (Romeo and Juliet, 1966) with an enthusiastic friend, while eating cheddar popcorn and chocolate cherries, is an unusual adventure, and quite satisfying.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uvOFMvwD-CU&feature=related

Venezia


Between Harmony Lane and Serenity along The Devil's Backbone hidden among scrub oaks and cacti is a sculpture called The Angel Ring. An open cell-tower-like aluminum structure, like the inside of a snowflake or kaleidoscope, it forms a framework for blue sky, for night time planets. If you lie beneath to stare upward or picnic, a friendly cat may assault your scalp, meteors may fly across the western sky, you may see light from a fabric of stars too distant to be seen or raining from the sculpture itself. The tube-like interior structure focuses your gaze to a diminishing point. The sculpture's orderly complexity is a quiet antidote for the chaos of life, as though gazing at its intricate symmetry of windows might help your brain sort and hold all of your mysteries and confusion in one simple web.

And, it is beautiful.