nomadicfishes

2009-02-21T21:16:00.000-08:00

The novel is a hairier project than anticipated! New material will be added sporadically.

Meanwhile photos and writing will continue to flow at:

4ozs

Thank you to visitors of nomadicfishes! You helped fuel this project which has been so satisfying for me.

2009-02-16T17:22:00.000-08:00

Fence art near Noe & 30th

Draft 2 of my novel IGNITION! is now in progress; you're welcome to come visit!

IGNITION!

2009-02-15T21:35:00.000-08:00

He took a brush, dipped it into warm water, and painted my body with designs only he could see.

2009-02-14T21:35:00.000-08:00

You enter the same door
a thousand plus a thousand days;
Then one day,
you choose a different door.

2009-02-14T00:29:00.000-08:00

2009-02-12T21:22:00.000-08:00

Five men were standing along the sidewalk on Mission, shooting the breeze, half sheltered by a restaurant entranceway. As I approached, a woman came toward me, passing the men.

I saw the men's faces change, the talk stopped, so I turned around to see what they were seeing.

She was dressed in black hose and high-heeled black boots and a snug skirt; her full hips swayed to the rhythm of the clicking of her heels. The men stared like children at her retreating figure. They gazed in open wonder. The woman was a gift.

2009-02-11T21:45:00.000-08:00

A poet showed up today.

I was sitting on a bench by the mailbox next to cafe seventy8 writing a valentine to Ms. Opal. A slender man in a worn jacket and work pants stopped near me. He said, things’ve really changed around here. I kept writing but asked, in what way have things changed?

Within a minute, he was quoting someone’s poetry he once read at a nearby coffee house whose owner has since passed away. Then he recited another poem, his own. He spoke in a low rhythmic voice, facing across the street into the chill gray.

Before he walked off, he crossed the street to tell his boss to come meet me. I put the red envelope in the mailbox. Pierre, a big, strong man, confused to be sent to me, told me he wasn’t the poet’s boss but his friend.

It started to rain. I zipped my jacket higher and left, but looked back to see the poet return to join Pierre at the truck.

The second poem had been truly marvelous, more so than the first. When I'd told the poet that, he turned his head away. I think he cried, and that's why he left.

I don’t have a great memory, but the last phrase went something like this:

break the silence with the thunder of a word

2009-02-11T00:50:00.002-08:00

2009-02-10T07:11:00.001-08:00

He continued to glance at me now and again, see if I was seeing him, which obviously I was, seeing him see me. He threw his jacket over the mountain of neatly folded clothes in the largest laundry basket I've ever seen. I was loading my wash into a dryer at that point, but when I looked up, he was standing outside next to the yellow truck, staring at me. The yellow truck was his? I grinned, he smiled back, got in and drove away. The yellow truck was the only pic I'd taken yesterday.

2009-02-08T21:53:00.002-08:00

street art (on Chenery, I think)

we'll go to the shore
with pail and shovel
and little wood fish
of many colors-

2009-02-07T20:58:00.001-08:00

Love is simple and oh so complicated.

2009-02-06T19:26:00.001-08:00

"Butterfly wings have scales that act as tiny solar collectors..."

American Chemical Society (2009, February 5). Natural Solar Collectors On Butterfly Wings Inspire More Powerful Solar Cells. ScienceDaily. Retrieved February 6, 2009, from http://www.sciencedaily.com /releases/2009/02/090204170548.htm

2009-02-05T21:26:00.000-08:00

2009-02-04T21:49:00.000-08:00

2009-02-04T05:19:00.000-08:00

fence art somewhere around Noe and 30th-

2009-02-02T22:51:00.002-08:00

I'm tired, my body's sore, and I feel very very good.

2009-02-01T19:05:00.002-08:00

2009-02-01T00:25:00.002-08:00

2009-01-30T20:58:00.001-08:00

Between this moment on Chenery:

and this moment (on Church?):

it went pop, pop, pop.

I mentioned idowhaticansnapsnap because, like several other photoblogs, it seemed to effortlessly generate improbable connections. I thought I'd write about that funny timing phenomenon some day. Well, some day's arrived sooner than planned. There came a synchronicity within a synchronicity today, soon after and oddly entwined with the last entry posted here.

This isn't much of a discussion, but at least I've introduced the subject.

2009-01-30T10:00:00.002-08:00

Years ago, I came upon a blog called something like: Harrumph! it's all about love...

I think the word Harrumph! called to me.

Well, that blog was already finished, but there was a link to the writer's more current stuff, which at that time was a photoblog, and that's how I found Heather Champ, a most remarkable participant in the blogging world.

It's not so much the content--the words or the photos--(though all of that is excellent and has a marvelous capacity to startle). It's been her ability to keep evolving, using new and revised tools that come her way and take her into uncharted territory.

One of her early experiments was called The Mirror Project. People emailed her photos of their reflections in mirrors, puddles, doorknobs, and she posted them.

The above picture reminded me of her project. You can check out Heather's current site at the link below:

hchamp.com

One of these days, I'll write about the now defunct photoblog: idowhaticansnapsnap

2009-01-28T17:48:00.001-08:00

A little broom theme happened today.

First, I heard sweeping.

Then we came upon the park groundskeeper who was working with broom and rake, and who has philosophy and stories to share for those who will take a few minutes to listen.

On the walk back from the park, I took the above pictures. I didn't notice until I loaded the images to my computer that there was a broom in the corner behind the red cycle, and that I had snagged a fellow in red farther down the sidewalk who was sweeping.

2009-01-27T22:42:00.002-08:00

Even if I knew that tomorrow the world would go to pieces, I would still plant my apple tree. ~Martin Luther King, Jr.~

2009-01-26T21:22:00.001-08:00

Cacti
Kerrville, Texas

2009-01-25T19:41:00.001-08:00

I just returned from a walk to Glen Canyon. My fingers are numb with cold, I can barely type!

This is some of what I saw and experienced. (Someone else on the same walk might have noticed totally different things.)

One of those trees with the bumpy lumpy bark.

A thin man with a beard speaking from within a small crowd at Bird and Beckett Books.

Cold gusty breeze.

A geranium-like flower with bright gold petals.

Two red-tailed hawks soaring together, weaving together and away, together and away.

A small park with a circular path. I walked several times around what looked to be a soccer team of 3 and 4 year olds, and a lot of people with dogs and balls and clear plastic bags of dogshit. A woman fiercely boxing in the air while her daughter rode a pink bicycle. A portly man in black coat and hat sitting focused in on himself. A couple on a bench. I heard the phrase ‘when we do our wills’ rise from the man as I passed. The woman looked extremely tense.

I walked a few times the other direction too, with what felt like a totally different view, same path.

The woman now smiling, no longer boxing, exiting the park with her daughter riding alongside.

The couple sitting and talking more comfortably.

The sun dropping below a hillside. The bench now empty.

Another red-tailed hawk, and a smaller, striking-colored, red-shouldered hawk.

A hawk ahead still in sunlight perched in the tree where I earlier searched for some small birds I’d seen in flight. The hawk looked at me, and away, and after a couple minutes, took flight pausing over my head twice, I guess to check me out. It was a red-tailed hawk. A couple jogged by and the man asked, was that a golden eagle?

I thought about the two golden eagles I’d seen while driving through Arizona. I thought about the bald eagle that had appeared above the snow in the sunlight, something I experienced as extraordinary as I approached Flagstaff from the south.

I saw a tall, thin, dark-haired boy in black and green doing sprints in one of the baseball diamonds at Glen Park. His fierce sprinting so fascinating, I bypassed Chenery and took Paradise instead a block farther.

A little girl perched in the open back end of a vehicle, waiting for her dad to finish seat-belting her brother.

License plates and signs on a fence. White roses and other tiny white flowers with oranges and limes dangling from branchesbehind them. The roses smelled divine.

A small bumpersticker that said “I …” and there was a sea turtle with a red heart on its back. There was a JFK quote in mosaic on a church, saying something about doing God’s work on earth. Inside the church building, I saw people playing fierce ping-pong, and behind them a white silhouette of an eagle on the wall.

The voices of boys approaching me from behind. Three guys around age 15, one carrying a skateboard, passed me up. I smelled that pungent end-of-the-day boy smell as they went by, and wished I had a warm-lit kitchen table where I could serve them spaghetti.

A bright yellow taxi next to bright yellow pavement segments. A red vespa, a shiny silver vespa.

A group called Passage to India playing jazz at Bird and Beckett.

A blue plush elephant dangling from a stroller.

A washeteria that looks cleaner than the one I usually go to.

A friend drinking a beer in a brown bag in the shrubbery.

The triangle of earth on College Avenue that was trashed out two years ago and is now clean-churned earth waiting to be seeded.

How happy I am to be back.

2009-01-24T20:15:00.000-08:00

2009-01-24T02:30:00.000-08:00

I'm a bit obsessed with the saguaros at Waffle House in Marana, Arizona.

When taking the pictures, it was as though I were invited in, as though the cacti were showing their true selves on short notice, as though the camera in my hands were operating itself. Sounds odd, but then it felt rather odd, almost ecstatic.

2009-01-22T20:28:00.000-08:00

Love isn't the wanting
it's the burning being
the radiance that staggers us
with its mystery

we mistake desire
-the emptiness-
for the abundance
that defines love

love is not the appetite
but the food
not the thirst
but the water

it's not the romantic angst
the hand-wringing and sleeplessness
but the tenderness
the eruption of laughter, passion, song

yearning is the infant's need for feeding
it's through being
-burning one's own true light-
one becomes the lover

2009-01-22T02:38:00.000-08:00

There are moments
(lit by tall tall lights
on a damp January night
in a park's green grass
looking across at congenial others
leaping beyond their own frontiers)
when it shyly taps into my awareness
how lucky to have this being here,
this doing what we're meant to be doing

2009-01-21T07:12:00.001-08:00

2009-01-20T11:10:00.001-08:00

Snow geese

2009-01-18T23:36:00.001-08:00

2009-01-17T21:10:00.000-08:00

2009-01-16T21:55:00.001-08:00

A spring stores energy.

2009-01-15T20:07:00.001-08:00

Nest in Waffle House saguaro:

Over two years ago on a Saturday afternoon, a toll taker at the Bay Bridge greeted me as it seemed he was greeting everyone ahead of me: 'How are you today, Sister? I love you, Sister.'

I only saw him that once, but as I arrived in San Francisco a few hours ago in my weighted car, there he was, the gatekeeper to the city, wearing a warm hat that covered his ears: 'Hello, Sister. How are you this evening, Sister? I love you, Sister.'

It's a big beautiful bridge, the structure, the views, the lights. It's a beautiful city. How much the man's welcome means to me.

2009-01-15T01:01:00.002-08:00

Driving north in central Arizona-

2009-01-13T20:53:00.004-08:00

For the third year in a row, I'm participating in a five-day new year meditation at sunrise. It's a marvelous tradition to start the year, and I'm appreciative of the Shintaido teacher who introduced me to it. The first year was a most mysterious experience, practicing with others in San Francisco. Last year, it was a source of inner support as my father and I helped my mother navigate her last weeks.

This year, the meditation started later than usual; day 2 was today. This has been the hardest year for me to get up before dawn. I guess I'm just tired. I've been packing to move, then loading the car and now, I'm traveling cross country to a new life with my car packed with so much unnecessary stuff. I don't know in each new setting exactly where to meditate, and in the stress of the travel, I'm not as organized in what I do.

This morning's meditation took place at the window in my motel room in Las Cruces. It was unorthodox, but ended with a sense of surprise and joy at the first witness of the sun.

After leaving Las Cruces feeling very good, I drove way off track, so off track-several hours-I felt sick.

I pulled off the interstate and called a friend to discuss options. After the call, I got out of the car to take a look at the paired saguaro in the Waffle House parking lot where I'd pulled over. I don't think I'd ever seen one in its home habitat before, and didn't remember them from the I-40 route I'd planned for today. The saguaro seemed so amazing to me that I wondered if the reason I'd gone so astray wasn't just to have the experience of meeting this one lifeform.

After the Waffle House, though, I was to have a high-traffic and tedious stretch of I-10 driving on the day that should have been most pleasant. My faith in myself was damaged, I felt deflated.

But some odd luck (associated with the phone call) intervened. I ended up off the freeway onto Tangerine Road in Marana. This led to Oracle Road and eventually to Globe, Arizona where I'm spending the night.

I found myself within ecstatic vistas of mountains covered by saguaros, all the way through sunset. I'm in new territory.

2009-01-12T21:28:00.003-08:00

The speed limit in much of west Texas is 80 miles per hour.

I stopped for gas in Fort Stockton. As I returned to the car, a bus pulled away with a mascot emblazoned on the back and the words Fighting Owls. I wished I had my camera in hand! So when the second bus pulled out, I had it ready to capture the Fighting Owls, and this is the blurry, through-the-windshield shot I got:

A different kind of birding! I also saw two real life red-tailed hawks along the way and a roadrunner. I saw an American kestrel, and a red-masked hawk on a pole that I couldn't look up because there's too much stuff in the car to reach the guide. I saw way too many dead deer along the way, including one that looked quite large and full grown, but with white spots like a fawn.

I'm reporting from a Comfort Inn in Las Cruces, New Mexico, and there's a very tired baby crying in the next room.

2009-01-11T13:35:00.000-08:00

2009-01-10T21:15:00.005-08:00

Today was likely my last practice on the beautiful, rugged field on Lamar. There was a gusty north wind. An armadillo showed up again, taking the same route from brush to bamboo. The great blue heron was perched in the pond in the apartment complex. (The pond was cleaned this week of styrofoam cups and other litter by a man in a red jacket. It looks much better.) A bright male cardinal was on a bare branch of a tree when I arrived, and was still there when I left.

Ball moss fascinates me. It's quite lovely and intriguing in its tangled design, neutral colors, and pale little bloomings. When adhered to a tree limb, the blooms dangle below. But when the balls fall to the ground, the flowers seem to land upright. Many people in this region worry that ball moss kills oaks, but the articles I've come across over the years suggest ball moss just parks on the trees, and lives off the moisture and nitrogen in the air.

I never would have called it pretty until these past few weeks.

I'm curious about the benefits of its design. I'm interested in its reputed potential to shrink tumors, and combat HIV. I hope to learn more.

(Only pictures 1, 3 and 5 have ball moss in them.)

2009-01-09T21:12:00.003-08:00

Partings are not sad when we know there are no partings.

I'm sowing a few words from today and yesterday, since I don’t seem to know where they fit in sensible sentences: Angel, Wild Rose, Michael the Archangel, taco, crow, panther.

They contributed to delight.

2009-01-08T21:49:00.001-08:00

...there were small sculptures, dark and bent, by Rodin, their shoulders and fingertips shooting afternoon sunlight. The kinetic feats of George Rickey sliced through the air. Even the watertower, huge white and pillowy, was a work of art, with the gibbous moon against afternoon sky behind it.

(afternoon at the McNay in San Antonio)

2009-01-07T19:40:00.000-08:00

You don't have to be shining and new to have street appeal.

2009-01-06T21:59:00.000-08:00

I got a hug from the lady with the purple chair.

It's not really goodbye.

I'm having trouble describing her, but here's the image that comes to mind: She's smiling that dynamite smile, holding out a big traffic signal in her arms-

Green light.

2009-01-05T21:33:00.006-08:00

"Each time you perfect a mantra, you are like a master musician who can evoke elevated states of being from the instrument of self." (-Yogi Bhajan)

In a house in the hill country of central Texas tonight, 8 people practiced yoga, and chanted a couple of mantras, shared yogi tea and dark chocolate. Everyone agreed it had been too long since the last class before the holidays. A small white ceramic origami crane was on the floor near the teacher. It held a tea candle that gave out warmth on a cold night. The practice was dedicated to being 'happy, healthy, whole and prosperous.' It was offered to those in our lives who could use some support. I can see the white crane, the hardwood floor reflecting the dancing light of the crane.

2009-01-04T21:12:00.001-08:00

2009-01-03T21:45:00.002-08:00

An armadillo was 12 feet away and heading at a determined pace precisely toward me. I held still, but then it was two feet away, and it was quite large and strange and the thought of it walking onto my feet and into my legs--gee. I startled. It stopped and peered up at me as though, what's this? and, where'd she come from?

I don't think an armadillo with its tiny eyes can see much on a sunny day. Its ears though are like soft furry little cups designed to capture sound--and I suspect it has an excellent sense of smell.

Well, the armadillo perhaps decided I was the strange one in the field. It hustled briskly back in the direction from which it came and into the brush. I stood a moment, and returned to stretching. The armadillo showed up again for the next stretch, and just passed me by on the other side, and circled around me into the bamboo.

Then came a great blue heron gliding over the dry brown grasses.

2009-01-02T21:31:00.001-08:00

Ah, friends!

2009-01-02T15:53:00.005-08:00

Sunlight spilled
onto the bed
and woke me up
first day
this sweet new year.

2008-12-31T07:51:00.004-08:00

In the hour after sunset today, the moon and planets will create a lovely visual celebration in the southwest. Venus will be radiant below the new crescent moon, and Mercury and bright Jupiter will be paired up near the horizon as well. A beautiful farewell to the old year, and an auspicious welcoming to the new.

Happy New Year!

2008-12-30T20:50:00.007-08:00

Contentment comes in being true to one's self, no matter what company one is in.

2008-12-30T00:54:00.001-08:00

I keep shooting out little sparks like a piece of flint rubbed against metal.

I’m so mad—this journey is too damn hard!!

I’m being pulled out of my cell and I’m clinging to the bars yelling but wait! I’m friends with the jailer, how can I leave? I get three meals and one cup of coffee a day! All I have to do is stay put.

I'm so scared and tired and full of doubt. It's so far. There are so many details, so much is unknown. I'm so inadequate. How can I do all of this? How will I survive? Will I become a disaster story, my family shaking their heads over my unexplainable downfall on the far end of the country?

I know deep down I’m leaving. I can’t resist the journey, the enigmatic calling toward something worthwhile. Even while my brain is arguing, I feel aroused, happy, just walking past the field with its red hot dog stand and crazy-berried stalks silhouetted against the horizon. This morning, it was clean before I got there. There was a stray metal grocery cart in the adjacent lot, shining silvery in the sun.

2008-12-28T21:59:00.002-08:00

Is it the rows and rows of food waiting to nourish us, so nicely organized, with their colorful labels? I don’t know, but even on darker days, a grocery store stirs something in me.

Today, I heard a bit of unlikely vocal being piped in--Crash Test Dummies in Randall's. I stopped my cart to listen. "Mmm Mmm Mmm Mmm,Mmm Mmm Mmm Mmm" he sang.

2008-12-27T21:39:00.000-08:00

It’s been a strange and lovely day with many gifts:

The rediscovery of the missing plastic coin, half hidden beneath the wood door in the field. It has a wreath of leaves around the dollar sign on each side.

Hard to put into words, but finding and losing a phony coin and finding it again offered fresh perspective about how to see and approach money concerns. (All money is phony in the sense that the bills and coins are only symbols of purchasing power. We can't feed our children dollar bills, or shelter them with coins.)

The rediscovery of the myth of Atalanta. (The race with Hippomenes and the golden apples was what I remembered, but I never knew that Atalanta was nursed and reared by a she-bear, and that maybe she was an Argonaut.)

The practice of the one Shintaido class routine I remember in its entirety. It includes warmups and the elements of tenshingoso, and never fails to deliver a sense of wonder, connection, and well-being.

The wind shifted just at the end of practice. It brought the sky to dramatic life, and later the pond as well, breaking the surface into spiraling tiles of light on water, mosaics of mesmerizing beauty.

A kingfisher with its black tufted head sat perched on a limb protruding from the water. I’ve never watched a kingfisher fish before. This bird flies heavily because of the weight of its head and beak, yet fishes gracefully, swiftly skimming the water and rising up into a circle of flight.

I caught the second half of the movie Bend It Like Beckham. I'd never seen it. Jess finds a way to do right by her family, and, despite family expectations otherwise, she finds a way to leave to play soccer and be truthful about who she is. Thus, she does right by her self.

2008-12-26T21:33:00.005-08:00

The wind was gusty, and it’s the day after Christmas, so there was trash: paper napkins, two beer cans, a Coke bottle, a Parliament cigarette box. As I left the garbage bin to return to the field for practice, there in my path was something I'd missed before—a bright disk. I stooped and saw it was a chipped, gold-painted plastic coin, play money for an event like a casino night or birthday party. The main insignia was a dollar sign in a circle. Perhaps I had something to learn. I picked it up.

I set the plastic coin down with my keys, and took it back with me when I was done with bokuto. Later, I thought about the coin all shiny. What exactly was imprinted on both sides? But I haven’t found it. Pockets, counters, bathroom, kitchen—nowhere.

Perhaps I have something to learn.

2008-12-25T20:47:00.000-08:00

The birds pop from the hedge like gifts:
House Sparrows, Carolina Wren, Tufted Titmice,
Carolina Chickadee, one red red Cardinal,
all arrive within a couple minutes,
perhaps to party near
the fresh water drip
at the base of the rain gutter.
A Great Blue Heron
stands guardian of the nearby pond.

2008-12-23T20:58:00.000-08:00

2008-12-22T21:34:00.001-08:00

2008-12-21T20:32:00.002-08:00

It’s so elation
so not alone
this shared journey
via solitary senses
It’s cold cold air
against the tongue
Fishes and ballerinas
within the belly
An appetite for God
in a dancing body

2008-12-20T21:45:00.002-08:00

(Winter solstice occurs in the US early on Sunday morning.)

In messy social situations, labyrinthian approaches can be the shortest distance between two points; it's the odd geometry of human interaction.

2008-12-19T22:30:00.003-08:00

There's a small group of people who meet every week. In their convening, they aim to relieve stress, have some fun, experience community. They generate a powerful force. It's not just the people who show up who benefit, but the ripples forward from each participant. As they go into the future, they interact more calmly with a daughter, a cashier, a new neighbor...and the next day, each of these people is more likely to respond pleasantly in the situations they encounter with a brother, a boss, a shuttle passenger, a waiter, a student. Positive energy ripples outward.

2008-12-18T21:53:00.002-08:00

Perspective and expectations are distorted this time of year. Things implode, boil over, or crumble under high pressure--it's simple physics. So don't be too hard on yourself. Be gentle with others. I'm sure we're all usually very nice persons.

2008-12-17T21:44:00.003-08:00

Friends show up out of nowhere and force me to gratefully reconsider my egotistical self-perception as a solitary little comet in a strange elliptical orbit. We're not all on the same belt, but we share the same solar system. We're made of the same stuff.

2008-12-17T03:16:00.001-08:00

2008-12-15T21:24:00.001-08:00

This is Cathedral Oak in Lafayette, Louisiana.

It's reported to be 500 years old. Hard to see, but it now relies on steel rods to support its heavy limbs.

I have prettier pictures of it, but I'm posting this one.

Tonight, the tree popped into my mind during meditation at the end of yoga, and then, a number of people I haven't thought of in a while surfaced, as though the tree were blooming with kind, supportive cohorts.

This tree is the setting for an uncle's favorite childhood memories with his friends.

The yoga class is a weekly event with dedicated participants and teacher. It takes place in a house with great African art and objects. The host's work is some distance away. It must require planning and effort to have a clean space and yogi tea ready each week. The class has an upbeat energy and amazing focus; the teacher is very in synch with her students and conjures up some remarkable sessions, mostly kundalini these days.

It's important to know the places and people and activities that have healing properties in one's life. They won't be the same for everyone. I've written about Pedernales Falls earlier this week, Shintaido off and on throughout this blog. I didn't know where I was going tonight, writing about a tree and yoga, but now I know. It's about power sources that feed and heal us.

2008-12-14T21:02:00.003-08:00

Picture: Toni Price and guitarist at Armadillo Bazaar today in Austin

"I think people are starved for emotion right now," Price said in 1996... "The world we live in is so stripped of emotion, so harsh, it's like we're made to be numb. I think people want something acoustic, something real. They want wood. They're sick of plastic and metal and fake and violent. Real people need a release from all the harshness..."

Drawing from the wells of country, rock, blues and soul, Price sang plaintive as deeply and intensely as Hank Williams sang lonesome — and she did it at the Continental almost every week.

"Swimming Away"
by Brad Buchholz
Austin American Statesman
June 01, 2007

In Care of the Blues - Youtube

2008-12-13T21:34:00.000-08:00

I passed the bulk foods aisle three times as I shopped the other day. Each time, there was a different man down the aisle, snitching sweets and treats from the bins as they did their shopping. Each one glanced up as I passed by and furtively finished shoving the food in his mouth.

They didn’t appear to be poor men. They were all around fifty, with nice clothes and a basket half-filled with groceries. But they were so desperate, trying to quiet their hunger with a scarfed-down chocolate or cracker, as though they had not been fed in a long, long time.

By the time I saw the third one, I had to wonder, what are these men really so hungry for?

2008-12-12T23:10:00.000-08:00

It's always a surprise, walking down the trail cloistered by junipers, to suddenly arrive at a great expanse of sky, the limestone canyon wall, the Pedernales River far below split into streams across slabs of flat stone. Everything's so big.

Tonight, my head is down, my heart low, focused on finding a solution for my glasses that just fell apart, missing a screw. A man from Germany approaches and hovers above to see what's the matter. After he joins his departing group, I finish my repair using a bit of wire from the loop on my keys.

There is no one left now. It's Friday night and I have the entire falls to myself: the cold clean air, the last of the glow from the sun’s departure, the reflection of Jupiter and Venus like diamonds in the large quiet pool, the bat thrusting out of a cave near the great knot hole in the far canyon wall, the sound of frogs and crashing water.

The eastern sky gradually grows bright, as though dawn were approaching. Waiting for the moon to rise, I become cold and do warm-ups, feeling small in the great space. I frame the full moon in the slow rising triangle of my hands as it crests the rim, water rushing before me. The moon's light turns the flowing water into braids like bright pale hair, and the edge of a pool becomes a thread of trembling light. Is there any place in the world so beautiful at this moment?

I cross the rocks and climb the broad stone steps, alone, but not lonely, my heart whole.

This is a daytime shot of Pedernales Falls from March, 2005 when there was more water, the canyon not so bare from drought.

2008-12-11T21:07:00.001-08:00

We dole out love in teaspoons, as though there were only one bottle left soon to run dry.

We choose love from a medicine dropper, when offered the sea.

What if love were infinite? Pour everybody a tumbler! Drink up!

Run hard, into the sea...

2008-12-10T21:04:00.002-08:00

2008-12-09T20:59:00.002-08:00

Cardinals and a wren made such pretty conversation this morning.
A friend and counselor reflected in the afternoon,
her voice up and down, the melody of chimes.
It's night now.
The wind is blowing, sleet is falling.
I smell ginger and cardamom, cloves and cinnamon
in the steam escaping the pot of tea on the stove.
Bird, woman, rain, spices
each echoes the message of the other:
we love.

2008-12-08T20:40:00.000-08:00

Update on the above fossil (first addressed here 20 January 2008).

In response to questions about this fossil, I did a little research, consulting with a certified Texas geologist who is quoted below. This fossil is also identified, with pictures, in the publication: Texas Fossils: An amateur collector's handbook, William H. Matthews III, Guidebook 2, Bureau of Economic Geology, The University of Texas, 1960.

This is a fossil of a creature called a protocardia bivalve.

Protocardia bivalve fossils are a genus of pelecypods (symmetrical two-shelled animals like clams, mussels, scallops and oysters) quite common in the limestone Glen Rose formation in northwest Hays County, Texas (just west of Austin) where this specimen was found.

Could this be a triceratops egg? Geologist: “No triceratops lived in the Cretaceous seas where these fossils [including the one in the photograph] are found, [and] their eggs would be found in sandstones not limestones.”

Is it possible it originally had a head and arms and legs? There are thousands of fossils like these that have been found, and there's been no reported evidence of appendages.

The fossil in the photograph was found in a neighborhood between Austin and Dripping Springs that also has fossil oysters, other mollusks, sand worm holes, and little sea urchins (echinoderms). It’s reasonable to assume these creatures died in the sea, not on land. Apparently what is true now was true back then: there are a lot of mollusks in the sea.

This one was alive over 60,000,000 years ago.

It's good to question stuff you read or see on TV, and I appreciate the opportunity to answer questions about stuff I post here.

2008-12-07T17:15:00.000-08:00

2008-12-06T22:31:00.002-08:00

It's a lesson too late for the learning
made of sand, made of sand.
In the wink of an eye my soul is turning
in your hand, in your hand.
Are you going away
with no word of farewell?
Will there be not a trace left behind?
Oh, I could've loved you better,
didn't mean to be unkind.
You know that was the last thing on my mind...

Tom Paxton

2008-12-05T16:53:00.001-08:00

Lucinda Johnson, who passed away Monday, will be terribly missed.
With a most genuine and generous heart, she loved people, and she loved to dance.

2008-12-04T21:51:00.004-08:00

2008-12-03T16:10:00.001-08:00

The Facebook (lil) Green Patch application has generated over 94 thousand dollars so far toward rain forest preservation by inviting social networking among friends and strangers over cartoon gardens.

http://apps.facebook.com/causes/hall_of_fame/show/2979

The funds are contributed to Nature Conservancy's Adopt an Acre.

And perhaps the amount of money generated is not even the greatest good such pastimes create. Comaraderie, diminishing the sense of isolation, exposure of people to different cultures via friendly encounters...

As others have noted before, harnessing the energy from having fun has as much, if not more, potential to accomplish good than many well-intentioned, earnest endeavors that feel like obligation.

2008-12-02T20:53:00.001-08:00

Sat Nam
we sing
Truth is my identity.
Truth’s the horse on the beach, spirited and unpredictable.
Truth’s the stalwart guardian who reins in the horse.

Too much of one, truth would crush the turtles' eggs buried in the sand.
Too much of the other, truth would never leave the corral.

2008-12-01T20:31:00.006-08:00

It's a beautiful night, the air all cold and clear.

The crescent moon with nearby Jupiter and Venus formed a ferret's face, the moon its down-curled mouth.

At 6:30 PM, a shooting star arced beneath the trio.

I drove slowly through a wooded neighborhood. A buck sat curled beneath a stand of oaks, his antlers like bare branches.

A small cottontail bounced before my car, its pale fur bright in the headlights.

A horse, restless in a barn warmed by incandescent lights, pranced round and round as I drove slowly by. Its silhouette, dark on bright gold, was perfectly framed by the door to the lit interior.

Orion is higher in the east than a couple weeks ago at this time of night.

A train's calling slow and low as I type.

2008-11-30T21:30:00.001-08:00

The dojo was rather a puzzle yesterday morning. Stalks of bamboo, cleanly cut as though with a blade, laid in fanned clusters. There was a red votive candle in the middle of the field. The plain clear glass holder had a wedge broken out of it. A small untouched cellophane bag of animal crackers, damp from drizzle, lay near the peeling wood door which is a permanent fixture in one corner. (Flat on the ground, the door works as a table for jacket, or keys, or bokuto.) Perhaps people had camped out there, created rough mats of bamboo as a cushion from the hard ground. They'd discovered a pocket of wilderness in the city.

But the one find during sword that pushed me to fetch my camera at the end of practice was the old smashed glasses.

(This is odd subject matter for a blog, isn't it? When I could write of more important matters, family matters or state of the planet or beautiful Jupiter and Venus fast approaching their rendezvous. But it's late, and the smashed glasses are what I've got.)

2008-11-29T20:58:00.001-08:00

2008-11-28T20:59:00.001-08:00

2008-11-27T21:55:00.001-08:00

A stranger was welcomed and fed.

2008-11-26T21:56:00.003-08:00

2008-11-25T17:28:00.001-08:00

2008-11-24T21:56:00.009-08:00

"Man is so made that whenever anything fires his soul, impossibilities
vanish." Jean de la Fontaine

to be so dancing
this 11:30 night
groceries in arms
the fat strawberries
the spiced hot tea
the chain link of women
so made
breath of fire
impossible
possible
to love life
from the ground floor
to see stars
in the pyre
of living dying

2008-11-23T21:50:00.004-08:00

Cosmic jokes abound, he said...

2008-11-22T20:22:00.000-08:00

It's a scruffy piece of land between the apartment complex and a small Citi bank. Bordered by oaks, a stand of bamboo, and the Barton Creek watershed, it fronts onto Lamar Boulevard. There have been doves, a harrier, a black fuzzy cat. A jogger, a guy on a bike, an elderly man in a black coat. A silver Chris Chicago Hot Dog trailer perches close to the street. The field was pretty trashed out when I discovered it a week and a half ago, but every morning I practice, I pick up and carry out a bag of litter. Today was the first day it really looked rather beautiful. A lot of intriguing intersections came to life.

The more you love a wild space, the more it opens up to you.

2008-11-21T20:55:00.000-08:00

The dark time of year approaches--winter solstice a month away.

We fight our bodies with alarm clocks and electric lights. We forget we're designed in winter for darkness, to dream bear dreams.

2008-11-20T18:35:00.002-08:00

'If I keep the green bough in my heart, the singing bird will come.'

Chinese proverb

2008-11-19T20:45:00.002-08:00

opportunities fall like oranges from the trees...

2008-11-18T18:49:00.001-08:00

This acorn was hanging from a burr oak in Kerrville, Texas around half past noon yesterday.

2008-11-17T21:36:00.001-08:00

At 9 PM
a reclining Orion
was rising in the eastern sky,
soon to be his magnificent self again.
Even at rest
he commands the night;
his stars scintillate
with each sleeping breath.

8oranges

2008-11-17T13:34:00.001-08:00

2008-11-15T21:02:00.001-08:00

2008-11-14T21:07:00.002-08:00

Geese at Dusk

2008-11-13T23:27:00.001-08:00

Shared, furnished apartment in Austin:

How did this happen?

How did I get here?

An intersection on Craigslist on Saturday; loaded the car and put foot to pedal on Monday.

Trust, gulp, and go...

There are points in life where we're in the dark. There are points in life where we are told in glowing terms: yes, you are right where you belong for now.

Today, I came upon an enthusiastic volunteer to try out my new line of work, and a dream-idea of how everything might come together.

"If you leave the pool you have dug for yourself and go out into the river of life then life has an astonishing way of taking care of you, because then there is no taking care on your part."
Krishnamurti
(First posted here in mid-October, lifted from a flyer for the Shintaido fall workshop in Massachusetts.)

2008-11-12T20:43:00.001-08:00

the night driver's hands
clutch the wheel;
bamboo sways,
turtles bask in the sun.

2008-11-11T21:52:00.000-08:00

It was a great day, driving into Austin, to hear blue-shirted John Aielli say we're in this world together, to eat Jamaican stirfry at Mother's, to find a place on Panther and Lamar, to hear the owls, the frogs and the train, to get from here to there without having to think, happy.

You let go of the trapeze, and the next one shows up.

2008-11-10T17:45:00.000-08:00

2008-11-09T20:40:00.002-08:00

Do you think migrating creatures are ever faint-hearted? That it's time to swim or fly, but the thought of all that ocean, all that sky, is just too much?

Do some agree to take that first little hop, 'just one!' and then another? Or do some focus on their destination and avoid thoughts about all the miles in between? Do they ever just give up and cry? stay behind?

Do they close their eyes, scream and leap outward? Or do they finally just trust, and go?