come sit in my house.. the winds blow through open windows.. some days it is hot, and some days it is cold.. i once lived in a house with no ceiling, doors or walls.. only windows. how different my life these days..
Egads… a book review…
Doomsday Book : Connie Willis
What? Science Fiction? Time Travel? 14th Century Europe?
Wasn’t that the time of the Black Plague? The Blue Illness?
Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. And yes.
I’ve discovered Connie Willis.. sort of like Columbus discovered America. Doomsday Book won the Hugo and Nebula in 93. She has won 11 Hugos and 7 Nebulas. So maybe others have discovered her too. But those that like SF respond to my question of Connie Willis and Doomsday Book with puzzled looks.
Doomsday Book is story telling at its best. Willis spent over 5 years writing this book and I expect that those who love it as I do, consume it in a very short time.
It is a story of youthful exuberance. Of the power of belief, not in a religious fashion, but from a spirituality that shines from within. Something that can come from within formal religion and from outside it. It is both joyous and heartbreaking.
I witnessed this book. I don’t say this about books.
-neil
Look at this picture. To take it, we had to get up at 4am and drive the 35 miles to the trail head of the Zion Canyon overlook so that we could get a parking space and hike up the 1.5 miles before everyone else took up all the choice spots along the edge. There were no stars. It was cold and overcast. We were the first in the parking lot, the first on the trail, and the first to the canyon overview. The clouds filled the sky. No one else bothered, realizing that there would be no blue sky this morning.
Zion Canyon Overview
And then, on the horizon, a break in the clouds allowed this beautiful sunrise with a stormy back drop. The light show lasted 10 minutes. Then it was gone, having shown for only the two of us. Life is being there hoping…
You hear about the fight/flight mechanism. Aikido is not fighting. Certainly there is no flight. I get a glimmer of the essence of it all during katatetori, when uke grabs my wrist. If I make a fist making it strong, then I’ve given uke something concrete and substantial to hang onto. It is about me. It is about my wrist. If I let it go limp and surrender, uke has it completely and again it is about me. I’ve disowned my wrist.
What then is left? Uke has hold of my wrist. He has hold of my arm. He has hold of my torso. He is holding my body. And of course, I am holding Uke’s body. If I see this, then I see more than my wrist.. more than his grip on my wrist.. I see both Uke and myself. This then is the beginning point.
We come up here to Sea Ranch once a year.
waves on a gentle day
Every year since 1988, except one year, when we went to Hawaii and could not afford both trips. The kids now come home so that we can do our yearly sojourn up here. We have friends here that live in Gualala, just 5 miles up the coast. For their vacation, they go down to Martinez in the S.F. Bay Area. Yes, that Martinez, with the refinery in its back year.
Witnessing
Yet they are excited as they prepare to go down there… to get away from the quiet.
Thank goodness for photography. I take pictures where ever I am. I find beauty there. I find beauty here. So the pictures are a reminder that you find beauty wherever you are. “.. the eye of the beholder.” I know that. You know that.
But every once in a while, we need a reminder:
Beauty is everywhere.. just remember to look…
Light Display at Day’s End
but no pondering weak and weary. On this night of nights when it is no less than hope that enters the world. Every group celebrates birth. This night belongs to one group, while others celebrate other nights and days. Shared all though is the belief that buried in the dust of the strugglings of daily life, there is something more. Something just. Something that stands above us all, as a star to which to reach. In the wind and cold, there is warmth within.
So stop. Pause. Look. For every person around you is struggling and striving and trying. Each one feels pain and fear and sorrow. Each travels the road alone, whether surrounded or isolated. We enter alone. We leave alone.
Such a burden to think yourself special. Such a burden to think thus. Rather see value in each life, each thing.
Ecclesiastes 1:9
Parallel Verses
New International Version
What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun.
Pick things up and put things down and needed. No more no less. May you know that that is sufficient.
May you feel the joys of all the celebrations of seasons such as these.
Yes. Hitchhiker’s Guide. When it’s time to say goodbye, sometimes there isn’t much to say.
I spent 4 years working hard and learning much. I guess that is when I’m happiest, when I’m in learning mode. But even with great technology, sometimes the market is just not right and it is taking just a bit too much time. That means something has got to be done. So, before that something, I decided to leave for greener pastures.
With the new job in the pocket, I had to say goodbye to the old. It was tough. People make the difference in the workplace. These are good people. But after a final yoga class and sandwiches.. no, no goodbye lunch for me, I shook some hands and left. It was like a weight was lifted. Funny how you don’t realize how the fishbowl looks from inside the fishbowl.
The next day was the next job. Good job. A place to learn lots of new things. A solid company. A new start. But as I sit here at home after my first full week, I can’t help but think about how chance lines things up. Sometimes for success. Sometimes for failure. If you’ve ever read “The Unbearable Lightness of Being” [a bit racy] by Milan Kundera.. six chance events that bring us to our fate…
Where ever you end up, there you are.
Sometimes there is nothing left to say, except ..
Thanks for all the fish.
I’ve been driving the SF Bay Area freeways for many years. So many times I have seen Peregrine Falcons perched on freeway lights, power polls,.. Lots of times. But they have always been alone. Never have I seen two together.
Today, on the way home from work, I saw what might have been the sight of my lifetime: Two Peregrine Falcons, sitting on a light fixture, just west of the Dumbarton Bridge Toll Plaza. One was brown:
and one was blue [ at least in the moments I could see it, it looked blue ] :
I’m assuming they were a mating pair. The brown bird was larger. I was thinking that the female is colored brown and the male colorful, but wikipedia says they have the same coloring. The female is larger. The Peregrine Falcon mates for life.
Just another romantic Friday afternoon in the Bay Area.
He was yelling. Actually, he was screaming. There is an edge to the voice when someone screams. He was double parked next to a van stopped in the pickup area in front of the library entrance. It isn’t really a pickup area since there is no widening of lanes to allow an unobstructing stop.
He was screaming at the van about stopping and blocking traffic. He must have sworn because someone commented about the foul language. Fifty or so people stood around in disbelief witnessing this display.
He gunned the engine and his rather nice silver car jumped violently forward a couple of feet. The car looked and felt very much like a weapon. There were mothers and young children around. Teens carried books. There were many cars around. Many in some state of wait. Waiting to pass. Waiting to park. Waiting even to just get out.
It was crowded. It was a bother. At 3:30, the edge of school time with the school time crowding. I did feel the annoyance.
On the back end of a horrific day, perhaps the events pushing inward would lead to anger.
We are all human. We are all subject to the pressures from without, mounting on the pressures from within, potentially leaving one screaming in some library parking lot.
The solution for us? There is no solution without seeing. So the first step is to watch. Today you may not be able to stop what might come, but tomorrow you will change nothing unless you first see.
The car drove away in moments. There was no screeching of tires. No more yelling. The car gone, the question remains: What of the rage within?
One Fine Wednesday | at 3:30 pm | Just after school has let out.
To be accurate, it was more 
stop and go and stop and go ..
There is a lot of wild life back here behind Castro Valley. I was heading up to this ridge,
when I saw a 2 or 3 point buck fly across the trail. He was making tracks. I laughed thinking he looked like he was running for his life.. then of course it occurred to me that
there are mountain lions back here. Okay, my eyes were quite a bit wider, and I found a couple of nice sized rocks on the ridge.. as if a couple of nice sized rocks would influence a mountain lion. Well, it was for my mental well being anyway, unless “he” showed up. Coming down from the ridge, three wild turkeys cross the road. It was a regular 237 with
all the comings…
and goings…
