Strange days

Strange days have found us.
Strange days have tracked us down.
They're going to destroy our casual joys.
(The Doors)

Russian warship go fuck yourself

Test coming

One of my friend Lawrence's favorite stories was how his martial arts teacher could shout TEST COMING and always manage to rattle the class and, even though we all knew what he was going to say, whenever Lawrence told the story, we'd also twitch and laugh nervously every time he told it. Turns out Lawrence's test was cancer. He stayed centered right to the end.

National Squirrel Appreciation day 🐿

Today, in honor of National Squirrel Appreciation Day 2022, Barney the Beast has prepared this lovely tribute. YAY SQUIRRELS EVERYWHERE! Treats for all . . . every day of the year!

Ok Barney! Take it away . . .

To whom it may concern

I'm here to learn, not teach. If I want it to be the way it was, I will never understand the way it is.

Gas prices

 The price of gas is the life of the planet.

Moving on

For now, this is my/our last day in Portugal. Tomorrow at 03h I will go to the airport for my flight to the US.

"Valeu a pena? Tudo vale a pena se a alma nao e pequena."
"Was it worth it? Everything is worth it if the soul is not small."
Fernando Pessoa, Portuguese poet

"I know not what tomorrow will bring."
He died the next day. 

Pen and pruning hook

They say "the pen is mightier than the sword". True, but not true enough. The pen is a sword, the sword which is sharpened only when I turn it on myself.

Gone are the adolescent dreams of the glory of a tragic death, gone fascination with battles fought, won or lost. The validation of success is a tattered flag limp in the wind's fury. There is no enduring victory, only quiet at the end of things.

They say "beat the swords into plowshares and pruning hooks". The pen is also a shovel and a pruning hook. Dig and uncover the truth of things, the truth within, truth with a small "t". That is the truth that matters. Prune the rest.

Sung - Conflict

 讼

Hexagram 6
Sung - Conflict

Changing lines
/Line Three
He stands on his integrity, no matter what ill winds may blast him. Stand or fall, in the end he will remain exactly who he is.

/Line Four
Realizing the very root of conflict lies within his own heart, he lays down his arms and resolves to accept the things he cannot change.

Phase One

Phase One” from Bring Now the Angels
by Dilruba Ahmed, 2020


For leaving the fridge open
last night, I forgive you.
For conjuring white curtains
instead of living your life.

For the seedlings that wilt, now,
in tiny pots, I forgive you.
For saying no first
but yes as an afterthought.

I forgive you for hideous visions
after childbirth, brought on by loss
of sleep. And when the baby woke
repeatedly, for your silent rebuke

in the dark, “What’s your beef?”
I forgive your letting vines
overtake the garden. For fearing
your own propensity to love.

For losing, again, your bag
en route from San Francisco;
for the equally heedless drive back
on the caffeine-fueled return.

I forgive you for leaving
windows open in rain
and soaking library books
again. For putting forth

only revisions of yourself,
with punctuation worked over,
instead of the disordered truth,
I forgive you. For singing mostly

when the shower drowns
your voice. For so admiring
the drummer you failed to hear
the drum. In forgotten tin cans,

may forgiveness gather. Pooling
in gutters. Gushing from pipes.
A great steady rain of olives
from branches, relieved

of cruelty and petty meanness.
With it, a flurry of wings, thirteen
gray pigeons. Ointment reserved
for healers and prophets. I forgive you.

I forgive you. For feeling awkward
and nervous without reason.
For bearing Keats’s empty vessel
with such calm you worried

you had, perhaps, no moral
center at all. For treating your mother
with contempt when she deserved
compassion. I forgive you. I forgive

you. I forgive you. For growing
a capacity for love that is great
but matched only, perhaps,
by your loneliness. For being unable

to forgive yourself first so you
could then forgive others and
at last find a way to become
the love that you want in this world.

 

Night bird

Note to self
There is a bird here on Portugal's Atlantic coast I only hear sing as midnight approaches. I love the song. I picked the song for a phone notification before I ever heard it in the wild. Hearing it at night like this is one thing I will really miss when we leave here, one thing among many, but also one of my favorites of all times. I must find out the name of this magical creature, and what she looks like so the memory of her and her wonderful call remains with me when we go.

Industrial battles

Industrial farming corporations battle nature but it is Nature who taught the Kung Fo masters.

Get out of the way

"Knives cut. Buckets hold. Sometimes—the only thing you can do is get out of the way." - I Ching

Picasso's thoughts on poetry

"Poems? There are stacks of poems lying here. When I began to write them I wanted to prepare myself a palette of words, as if I were dealing with colours. All these words were weighted, filtered and appraised. I don't put much stock in spontaneous expressions of the unconscious." He added that long after his death his writing would "gain recognition and encyclopedias would say: 'Picasso, Pablo Ruiz – Spanish poet who dabbled in painting, drawing and sculpture.'"

Treasure box

I just rediscovered this collection of quotes my daughter-in-law sent earlier on of things my grandsons have said and am posting them here so I won't lose them again.

08.2016 
Today Frank asked to be called Fang. Prior to that is was Arrow and before that Orchid.

10.2016
Frank just asked me: mom, in water versus electricity, does water win because it breaks the electricity? Interesting thinking!

01.2017 
Leo just now: forever plus forever is another time.

05.2017
Frank and I were looking at a book that talked about the first space missions and how monkeys were sent up before people. Frank did not like this and said, "you don't test on creatures, you test on someone your own size." Thought you'd appreciate that!

01.2018  
Frank just now: what thing do you think will be here after us, after all the people die? Me: I don't know, what do you think? Frank: maybe...robots? Or zombies? 😨

Swami and Juan Carlos rockin' out in the Alentejo

Amator

Amateur or Amator

"The very classification 'amateur' has an apologetic ring but that word, from the Latin amator, 'lover'- means one who does something for the love of the thing rather than for economic reasons or necessity. And this is the meaning from which the amateur filmmaker should take his cue. Instead of envying the script and dialogue writers, the trained actors, the elaborate staff and sets, the enormous production budgets of the professional film, the amateur should make use of the one great advantage which all professionals envy him, namely, freedom-both artistic and physical."

-Maya Deren, "Amateur versus Professional," Movie Makers Annual, 1959

Summer solstice two days late

Don't get me wrong. I'm not saying the longest day of year 2021 north of the equator was two days late. I am late writing about it, which I think is a first since I started this blog 18 years ago. 

It was an odd oversight as I've been watching sunlight slowly move north for months, waiting for it to finally shine on Plantie. She's the little rescue plant I moved to the narrow gorilla garden along the wall of the parking lot across the street. Others have planted things there as well so it seemed okay. She had outgrown her pot and was beginning to die. The biggest problem in this tiny garden is that a wall shades it most of the year. 

It was only as summer solstice drew near that Plantie and her companions finally got to enjoy the sun's early morning rays, which they say is like mother's milk to growing things. Now that this singular moment has passed, the shade will soon return. 

I miss having my own garden, such is apartment life, but how did I miss the solstice? I was distracted, rushed, busy from the beginning of that day to its end when I finally went to bed. First it was with one of my ongoing medical issues, it sucks getting old, followed by two meetings in a row. I intend to die with my boots on.

Summer residents

Flight path of the swallows

They live as far away as South Africa in the winter but in summer we are graced by the return of the Swallows, Martins, and Swifts. I'm not entirely sure which species lives in my neighborhood, they all look similar, but probably these guys are Swallows. Whichever, it's breakfast time, so I'm enjoying their fascinating aerial ballet. In any case, they all do the same dip, dive, and swirling flight as they mine the air for food but, to be honest, I wish they were Swifts. They especially fascinate me. Other than nesting time, they spend their entire lives in the air. How is that even possible?

 

 There is another world, but it is in this one." -- Paul Eluard

(Image credit: Alamy)

Restoring nature means we have to learn how to share the world with other species rather than dominate them. The BBC published an interesting article on this topic last month titled The nature reserve with the 500-year plan. Check it out.

May 29 note to self

Chiang Mai - Thailand
remains of offerings
from a Spirit House

Portugal.

Off shore spring wind howling around the building. Going though some photos from Thailand 2014. Devotion brings out the best in us. Time takes it all. Even love attends grief.

Life

Tao Te Ching...

verse for today (*):

48

In pursuit of knowledge,
every day something is added.
In the practice of the Tao,
every day something is dropped.
Less and less do you need to force things,
until finally you arrive at non-action.
When nothing is done,
nothing is left undone.

True mastery can be gained
by letting things go their own way.
It can't be gained by interfering.

(translation by Stephen Mitchell, 1995)

One star universe

How many stars can you see at night from your place on earth? I grew up where we saw a lot, the whole sky we thought. Of course, as telescopes and space probes continue to improve, we see universes beyond universes. Who knows? Perhaps there really are parallel universes, one of my favorite ideas, but back to point, asha.

I lived in NYC for a year in my 20s and, if I was lucky, I could see one star at night from my hotel room window and that only through the various kinds of pollution suffocating us. That star immediately became my special friend, a comfort, a wonder and a joy. It still is. I can still see its singular, hazy light. It's still a light in the dark; in spite of everything I may be going through, you may be going through, we may be going through, it still comforts and amazes me. Even if the star itself was extinguished centuries or millennia ago by the forces of time, it still shines in the theatre of my mind, connecting me to something greater, something enduring, a comfort in spite of everything.

Want to see where clear night skies still exist?  Light pollution map. 

51 years later

The message was sent  51 years ago. I received it tonight.


Cast Hexagram

    谦  

#15 - Ch'ien - Modesty

THE IMAGE

Within the earth, a mountain:
The image of MODESTY.
Thus the superior man reduces that which is too much,
And augments that which is too little.
He weighs things and makes them equal.

Notes from Coimbra

Note from the future