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!

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

(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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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?

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.

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...

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.