The flowers on this tree are all so pretty
colors and petals so neatly arranged
Their leaves bend down like rowing wings
floral sea turtles
or neatly-feathered birds pushing off into the air
They all live together
And when they fall, their whole round dish of pink meets the sidewalk
where I pick them up
and in my hand, their delicately soft yet structured form
rests gently limp across my fingers
exactly like a dead bird
The deep green pool of the Salinas River was still in the late afternoon. Already the sun had left the valley to go climbing up the slopes of the Gabilan mountains, and the hilltops were rosy in the sun. But by the pool among the mottled sycamores, a pleasant shade had fallen.
Walking slowly through the brush, I expected to find it somewhere - a floating, loosely basketball-sized cloud of color, the pink that surrounds the sun on a horizon. Although it came and went, it never vanished far into the forest. It did as it wished. I'd come to find it before it could return again, to keep it in the forest.
I didn't have to look hard. I found it, warm light pulsing calmly by the pool's edge, and walked quietly to it.
"Hey," I said, although it doesn't speak.
I picked my way near it and sat down. It hovered a few inches off the ground.
"I found you," I said obviously. "I knew you'd be around here. I wouldn't forget you. I'm not that kind."
I mustn't make it feel threatened or panic. But, neither was there any place for it here. It could not be permitted to stay or show itself anytime soon.
From the distance came the sound of men shouting to one another.
I'm never sure how much it understands. It doesn't speak and keeps to its own affairs. It's sometimes unusual, sometimes unexpected, but it makes no difference.
"You know, if it weren't for you out here, I could stay back in the fields and finish the work around the yard...," I said, trying to smile and without a hint of admonition.
I think it understands more than it lets on.
It is yet mysterious to me. It seems to mean no harm.
"You're different." I said.
I watched it beginning to glow like a coal in the darkening evening.
The little evening breeze blew over the clearing and the leaves rustled and the wind waves flowed up the green pool. And the shouts of men sounded again.
I looked out across the pool.
"Look across the pool," I said shakily. "Isn't it beautiful?"
"Look across. Tell me how it could be. No, I mean, let me tell you... I'll tell you so you can almost see it."
And as I said it, it felt like offering firewood to the sun. I realized I don't even know if it can see, or which direction it faces.
"Look across the pool, and I'll tell you."
I would've liked to hear its story, though.
I reached in my side pocket and snapped the safety off of Carlson's Luger. My hand tightened around it and began to shake. I looked at its softly throbbing cloud of pink, churning slowly like a rosy star.
"We're gonna get a little place," I said. "And you won't have to drift around in the forest. We'll have a cow, and maybe a pig and chickens, ... and a little piece alfalfa -"
I think it heard the catch in my voice.
I raised the Luger behind it.
There was just no other way around this. I know I could not have asked anything of it.
"Look down there across the river, like you can almost see it. Gonna do it soon."
But it rose slightly, hovering above me.
I'm sure it saw me holding the gun.
But then it left and floated off, across the river.
I watched the rosy glow dissolving in the distance, reflecting off the waters already darkened by the fading sunset.
I think it understood
both what I was doing, why I had to, and how it must respond (even though I think it knew that I would not be able to actually carry it out).
I stayed beside the pool for a while, leaning back on my hands and trying to see across the thickening veil of darkness.
Then I re-snapped the safety, put the gun back into my pocket, and began the long walk home.
Tomorrow, I'd begin work again.
Let the festivities begin!
(or if you've missed Pi Day, here are some alternative ideas from Dinosaur Comics)
I was happy with turning out a couple of these, but then I get this phone call..
Do you have sidewalk chalk?
Oh, did I ever...
Or,
in realtime...
and.
um.
"Pi is three"
we'll forgive him.
I'm sorry. I was being justifiably angry
I've been thinking of tulips and a documentary called One.
I don't really hate you.
(Mostly because I will not accomplish anything with hatred.
There is greater strength and power in joy than in anger.)
I find you detestable and your methods destructive and senseless.
But I keep seeing the World you could've been,
and the World you can still be.
You can be beautiful.
Even now, you are. Admit it, but take care for your broken places. Show some decency.
What do you want to be when you grow up?
You have a responsibility to work on that.
Please grow up, World, so we have somewhere to live with each other.
You will probably laugh at me, but sometimes my dream for humanity
is for us to be like puppies in the Garden of Eden.
Be a World where we can play outside in the sun without being burned.
I still hate you.
You cause so much pain, even for those who care about you.
One of my friends told me of psychology experiment she had done in school in which a pair of voles were separated for 14 days and given access to alcohol. Voles mate for life and are normally separated from their partner for only minutes at a time.
14 days must have been an eternity. The experiment was to see how the voles would respond to their isolated situation and the availability of alcohol.
They took it.
After 14 days when they were reunited,
they were individually scrambled and completely dysfunctional together.
I don't know what was gained from the experiment.
World,
what horrible experiment are you conducting with us,
... are we conducting on ourselves?
This drunkenness began in another tavern
I want out of this box.
How are we supposed to help each other when we are isolated voles?
I am sorry.
I have learned to live well in confinement.
I thought it was the best way to live. I practiced.
It is good, but it is not all.
It will be hard to learn otherwise, but I don't want to stay dysfunctional.
I have made much progress.
Help me break out of this prison for drunks.
I decided to go biking in the Tideman-Johnson direction today (3.12.07),
for personal reasons.
I didn't go very far,
I just needed to go. There is a river
that moves near the trail.
When I came to the road, I turned to go back
and saw a small trail that might be difficult to bike on without sliding.
I decided to take it,
for crazy reasons.
I biked, and slid some, and came to a place where the river was framed with beautifully arranged stones - where I drew that picture.
****
I interrupt this story to bring you a previous narrative of how, when snowboarding at Mt. Hood, there was a trail through the forest that looked as though I must go very slowly and take care not to fall too close to trees. I decided to take it,
for crazy reasons.
I fell many times, very near trees.
One of these times, I stayed down - tired and uncertain of where it was safe to move. Then I looked up, and the sun was shining through the pine trees that towered over me, holding the sky on their pointed tops.
****
I interrupt this narrative to bring you the instant in which, no longer able to sit still, I needed to go do something involving expending large amounts of physical energy and velocity,
for personal crazy reasons.
I took my bike, and went south in the rain. It seemed as though the clouds were breaking up so I chose the route that would take me to the overpass, in case the sun came out. The rain kept coming in thin little streaks as the sky became lighter. And, as I turned into a curve, moving very quickly, the sidewalk framed on both sides by sleek pines, the sun brushed its mask of clouds aside and the world became a brilliant glare of silver and outlines.
The wet road lit up white with reflection, the white clouds filling the sky showered down gleaming glassy threads of rain, the pines standing tall on either side of me became as shining ice. As I turned the corner, before the sun again retreated, my world was one of glossy white and edges.
******
The pines held clumps of snow in their branches which the sun, melting it, caused to fall like rain around me and
I swear the sun had such an angle that every single drop hanging, falling from the branches shone like a diamond in a commercial.
What could I do but lean back into the snow and watch the drops fall from the tops of the pines in the brilliant sky
stopping short of my eyes, descending instead on my goggles?
It took me a long time to get back to the main path and the lift,
but the such a surprise was so worth it.
****
I watched the water run through the shape of the river
and the sun came in and out of hiding (as did the hummingbirds). It occurred to me to blur my eyes a bit and watch the river's patterns. The shape of the river does not change as the water hurtles through it like a bird through a banquet hall,
and down the small waterfall between nicely-walled and arched stones on either side.
I walked down a bit past the froth from the waterfall and,
I kid you not
the sun was sinking left and behind me, and as I looked back upriver,
it was as if the froth was laced with silver glitter.
****
With this in mind
I have decided
that the best path to take
is the crazy one
the one that you might slip or fall in, but invites a try.
But only if you keep your head up
and keep the sun in mind
otherwise, for all you'll learn, you might as well have taken the easy way home.
And today,
I wanted to climb a tree and sit in the top like a lotus
because of things like cherry blossoms
and rivers, and how the shapes of pain and joy and love and loss and life and death flow together
because today dying and falling in love seem like the same thing,
both mess with the sense of identity
There is too much river out there
and too little me to refuse either.
Because I've answered the question I've asked myself for years:
Given one of two options,
which would you choose?
1) To expend your life in search of truth with the foreknowledge that you would never find it,
2) To live comfortably and happy, never finding truth, but never searching either.
I am suspicious of people who choose option #1 too quickly. I wonder if they understand either of the choices.
It's been 2 years since the question was posed to me in this way.
Today my final answer is a solid #1.
*
I have waited for these for so long
And then I walked right under them without noticing
because I was trying not to miss something else
Somewhere, in some parts of the world yesterday
it seems an unknown button was pressed
There were not immediate consequences.
Possibly, that remote control was then dismissed as broken or lost.
It may be wedged in someone's couch right now. They have no idea.
I think that it is lying on a field of warm grass with an open blue-clouded sky above.
I think it is God's
and he uses it to remind us of how all things can begin anew.
It is life and freedom and strength despite.
Since we forget so often
that it is always possible.
it was fun.
and,
a drawing from 1/4/07,
a collaboration
I expect it won't make any sense. yet.
Edited from 3.07.07, Notebook 2.12.07
Abridged and Censored version
Some thoughts considered
and transcribed immediately after returning to my dorm from listening to some of a presentation about nonviolent protest in Palestine.
I was just thinking about how I have spent a large amount of my life waking up into a world in which I've lost my best friend, and feel helpless to regain them. I can only wait and do my best, but there are no guarantees and sometimes my best is not good enough.
I hate it.
This is nothing new, nothing different,
nothing worse than anyone else in the world has experienced.
My friends have never been killed in wars...
Some people spend each day wondering whether the family that leaves home in the morning will ever return,
and when they don't return, wondering if they're alive and if there is anything to be done.
Some peoples' friends are really dead. Many are more alone than I.
but I still hate it. I hate it.
I stay here because I refuse to give up on the world.
My suffering has been insignificantly small in comparison,
but even it is too much for my idea of how this world could be.
Even here
where there is not war
there is too much loss
How can we live like this?
My consideration of how much of my life this has gone on for
...becomes a quiet rage.
I will fight this.
Oh, but how?
How can I love?
That's not the question. I do.
How
do I love in a way that can be understood? In a way that unites?
World,
I hate you for taking my friends every day for years.
I hate you for doing worse to others.
Others,
I love you for your endurance. Ours is the same fight.
We are all alone together, but that is not enough.
World, I hate this. I hate your systems and my helplessness.
I will fight this all my life.
By my loss, I am your enemy.
I went to check my mail today.
There's a game of 'Assassin' currently in progress, and apparently one of the rules this time around is that your assassin can try to kill you with a "letter bomb" - an innocent-looking piece of mail that informs you that you have been killed by the assassin. I understand that there is some sort of procedure you may take to diffuse the letter bomb so that you can look upon it and live. Ordinarily you 'kill' people by touching them with a sock on your hand and saying their full name to tell them that they've been killed.
I'm not playing, but I've been thinking of walking around with a sock on my hand just to make people nervous.
Sometimes they mis-file mail and I get other peoples' letters. I was thinking to myself, as I approached my box, that it would be amusing to get someone else's letter bomb. I opened my box and ... lo and behold: among the other more standard envelopes, something small and custom-made - two of them - notes from a friend.
If possible, I would like to see the instant replay of myself opening the note while walking, reading it and stopping for a moment, then subtly crumpling and crying.
I almost wished that someone would notice and ask me why I was crying so that I could tell them that I'd just gotten something wonderful in the mail.
No one did.
Among the things that make me cry, I think one is the recognition of significance. Sometimes I look for it, sometimes it finds me. But, when it's close enough - in some strange reverse-dowsing - it draws the water out of me through my eyes.
It was that beautiful.
If you've sent me something thoughtful, especially in the last 5 years or so, I've probably cried at it.
p.s.
Today is my great-grandma's birthday.
Or - it would be if she were still alive.
Her birthday is a permutation of mine,
and she lived to be 104 during one whole century and pieces of two others.
She almost made it to be 105.
On Sunday, SDS (Students for a Democratic Society) started planting red and white flags on the front lawn to symbolize the extent of the loss of life in the Iraq War. White for Iraqi deaths, red for Americans.
Classes this week are delaying the progress, but as of today, the white (and speckled red)mass of fluttering death (as one student referred to it) is still spreading like a long-armed cancer across the front lawn.
And there are still bundles of white flags yet to go.
Here is a story: Tears on the Front Lawn from one of the students who was planting flags.
And pictures from Sunday.
I have very much enjoyed today's date,
and have not much else to say
except perhaps to comment
that I think I need to try producing more
writing, information, stories, etc
instead of only funneling or concentrating
that which I find elsewhere
(which also is a good thing)
I realize that I often put things of much significance to myself on here without offering any explanation and leaving the reader to take what they see. I think I should try to be more responsible to leave commentary, however that may be subject to time interests...
And despite what I just said,
here is another filtered un-explained item:
by Rumi
Trans. Coleman Barks.
All day I think about it, then at night I say it.
Where did I come from, and what am I supposed to be doing?
I have no idea.
My soul is from elsewhere, I'm sure of that,
and I intend to end up there.
This drunkenness began in some other tavern.
When I get back around to that place,
I'll be completely sober. Meanwhile,
I'm like a bird from another continent, sitting in this aviary.
The day is coming when I fly off,
but who is it now in my ear who hears my voice?
Who says words with my mouth?
Who looks out with my eyes? What is the soul?
I cannot stop asking.
If I could taste one sip of an answer,
I could break out of this prison for drunks.
I didn't come here of my own accord, and I can't leave that way.
Whoever brought me here, will have to take me home.
This poetry. I never know what I'm going to say.
I don't plan it.
When I'm outside the saying of it,
I get very quiet and rarely speak at all.
It's really starting to feel like SPRING!
It's getting warmer, the nights are becoming wonderfully-temperatured, and the flowers are coming out!
Just look at the people, spending time outside on the lawn
And all the pretty white flowers! 
wait...
Those aren't flowers...
Oh.
shoot. um.
and they're still planting them...
(parts of this remind me of RLP's Dramatic Version of Mark 10:17-27 - The Richest Man in Town)
From my reading for Intro to Islam:
Selections from "A Theologian's Mid-Life Crisis" by Al-Ghazali
from That Which Delivers from Error, Al-Munqidh min al-Dalal
From the Introduction
The author was known in the Islamic world as a theologian, defender of Muslim orthodoxy, and champion of the Sufi or mystical search for God. He was a renowned teacher in Baghdad.
"At the height of his career, al-Ghazali gave it up and left Baghdad for years of introspection and travel in Syria, Egypt and the Hijaz. This sudden change in his life has been ascribed variously to a nervous breakdown, a loss of favor with the ruling elite, or the threat of murder by the Assassins, an esoteric sect that threatened the orthodox Muslim rule of the saljuq sultans and that had already succeeded in murdering the vizier Nizam al-Mulk. During the last five years of his life, al-Ghazali lived quietly in Nishapur and in his home town of Tus where he died in 505/1111."
"The search for truth, beginning with the cleansing of one's own soul, is not the property of any single civilization"
"In this selection from al-Muniqh min al-Dalal, al-Ghazali recounts his long years of study, the confusion arising from them, and his attempt to find certain knowledge. In a striking passage, he describes his scepticism in terms later developed by the seventeenth-century French philosopher Descartes. Unlike Descartes, however, al-Ghazali found release from doubt in a light which God most high cast into my breast and from this he achieved an intuitive understanding of things Divine. It was his understanding of this act of grace that led al-Ghazali to reject the dry formulas of theologians, the authoritarian pronouncements of the Batini or esoteric imams, and the convoluted reasoning... of the philosophers. Instead, he gravitated toward the Sufi or mystical path, in which the seekers turned themselves wholly toward God, examined their consciences, and rejected the earthly rewards of the pursuit of knowledge. ... His final position was one of confidence in the mystical search for truth and an affirmation of faith."
Deliverance from Error
and attachment to the Lord of might and majesy
"You must know - and my God most high perfect you in the right way and soften your hearts to receive the truth - that the different religious observances and religious communities of the human race and likewise the different theological systems of the religious leaders, with all the multiplicity of sects and variety of practices, constitute ocean depths in which the majority drown and only a minority reach safety. Each separate group thinks that it alone is saved, and 'each party is rejoicing in what they have' (Q. 23,55,30,31)"
"To thirst after a comprehension of things as they really are was my habit and custom from a very early age. It was instinctive with me, a party of my God-given nature, a matter of temperament and not of my choice or contriving."
"I saw that Christian youths always grew up to be Christians, Jewish youths to be Jews, and Muslim youths to be Muslims. I heard, too, the Tradition related of the Prophet of God according to which he said: 'Everyone who is born is born with a sound nature, it is his parents who make him a Jew or a Christian or a Magian'. My inmost being was moved to discover what this original nature really was and what the beliefs derived from the authority of parents and teachers really were."
"I therefor said within myself: To begin with, what I am looking for is knowledge of what things really are, so I must undoubtedly try to find what knowledge really is. It was plain to me that sure and certain knowledge is that knowledge in which the object is disclosed in such a fashion that no doubt remains along with it, that no possibility of error or illusion accompanies it, and that the mind cannot even entertain such a supposition."
...He considers that he only really knows what he senses and 'first principles' - ideas like how something cannot be affirmed and denied at the same time... but by further questioning, no longer trusts either his senses or the security of first principles since maybe if we zoom out far enough, it's really all a dream. This rather confounded him for a while, since he was not allowed to use first principles to build his explanation...
"At length God cured me of the malady; my being was restored to health and an even balance; the necessary truths of the intellect became once more accepted, as I regained confidence in their certain and trustworthy character. This did not come about by systematic demonstration or marshalled argument, but by a light which God most high cast into my breast. That light is the key to the greater part of knowledge. Whoever thinks that the understanding of the Divine rests upon strict proofs has in his thought narrowed down the wideness of God's mercy."
"When the Messenger of God (peace be upon him) was asked about 'enlarging' (sharh) and its meaning in the verse:
'Whenever God wills to guide a man, He enlarges his breast for islam (i.e. surrender to God)'(Q. 6, 125),
he said, 'It is a light which God most high casts into the heart'. When asked, 'What is the sign of it?', he said, 'Withdrawal from the mansion of deceptioni and return to the mansion of eternity."
In the days of your age your Lord has gusts of favour; then place yourselves in the way of them.
"...if what is present is sought for, it becomes hidden and lost."
(He describes his opinions regarding the path taken by theologians who seem to only defend orthodoxy and find problems with other arguments, the results of which he did not consider 'sufficient to dispel universally the darkness of confusion due to the different views of men')
"My purpose here, however, is to describe my own case, not to disparage those who sought a remedy thereby, for the healing drugs very with the disease. How often one sick man's medicine proves to be another's poison!"
He goes on from theology to study philosophy to get a grasp on the sciences in question for him, and since as far as he knew, none of the doctors of Islam had devoted thought or attention to philosophy.
"I realized that to refute a system before understanding it and becoming acquainted with its depths is to act blindly."
So he reads about philosophy for 2 years...
"I continued to reflect assiduously for nearly a year on what I had assimilated, going over it in my mind again and again and probing its tangled depths, until I comprehended surely and certainly how far it was deceitful and confusing and how far true and a representation of reality."
[here, 20 pages are removed from the reading. Perhaps details about various philosophers and 'sciences']
"There are indeed certain of them who lay claim to have some special knowledge. But this knowledge, as they describe it, amounts to some trifling details of the philosophy of Pythagoras. The latter was one of the earliest of all the ancients and his philosophical system is the weakest of all; Aristotle not only criticized him but showed the weakness and corruption of his thought. Yet he is the person followed in the Book of the Brethren of Purity, which is really but the dregs of philosophy"
"It is truly amazing that men should toil all their life long searching for knowledge and in the end be content with such feeble and emaciated knoweldge, while imagining that they have attained the utmost aims of the sciences!"
He moves on to Mysticism
"I knew that the complete mystic 'way' includes both intellectual belief and practical activity; the latter consists in getting rid of the obstacles in the self and in stripping off its base characteristics and vicious morals, so that the heart may attain to freedom from what is not God and to constant recollection of Him."
"The intellectual belief was easier to me than the practical activity"
"It became clear to me, however, that what is most distinctive of mysticism is something which cannot be apprehended by study, but only by immediate experience (dhawq - literally 'tasting'), by esctasy and by a moral change. What a difference there is between knowing the definition of health and satiety, together with their causes and presuppositions, and being healthy and satisfied!"
"I apprehended clearly that the mystics were men who had real experiences, not men of words, and that I had already progressed as far as was possible by way of intellectual apprehension. What remained for me was not to be attained by oral instruction and study but only by immediate experience and by walking in the mystic way."
From the paths he had traveled in his studies, "...there had come to me a sure faith in God most high, in prophethood (or revelation), and in the Last Day. These three credal principles were firmly rooted in my being, not through any carefully argued proofs, but by reason of various causes, coincidences, and experiences which are not capable of being stated in detail."
"It had already become clear to me that I had no hope of the blisso fthe world to come save through a God-fearing life and the withdrawal of myself from vain desire. It was clear to me too that the key to all this was to sever the attachment of the heart to worldly things by leaving the mansion of deception and returning to that of eternity, and to advance toward God most high with all earnestness. It was also clear that this was only to be achieved by turning away from wealth and position and fleeing from all time-consuming entanglements..."
"I put one foot forward and drew the other back. If in the morning I had a genuine longing to seek eternal life, by the evening the attack of a whole host of desires had reduced it to impotence. Worldly desires were striving to keep me by their chains just where I was, while the voice of faith was calling, To the road! To the road! What is left of life is but a little and the journey before you is long. All that keeps you busy, both intellectually and practically, is but hypocrisy and delusion. If you do not prepare now for eternal life, when will you prepare? If you do not now sever these attachments, when will you sever them? On hearing that, the impulse would be stirred and the resolution made to take to flight."
He winds up with some sort of anxiety that dries out his mouth and prevents him from lecturing (or even eating properly). Feeling that he had lost his power of choice, he turned to God who 'made it easy for my heart to turn away from position and wealth, from children and friends'. He makes secret plans to travel to Syria, leaves Baghdad, and distributes his wealth so there is just enough for him and to provide for his children. He feels a prompting to fufil the Pilgrimage, makes the journey tot he Hijaz, and is later drawn by various concerns and the entreaties of his children back home. He stays home for 10 years between solitude and obstacles.
"I learnt with certainty that it is above all the mystics who walk on the road of God; their life is the best life, their method the soundest method, and their character the purest character; indeed, were the intellect of the intellectuals and the learning of the learned and the scholarship of the scholars, who are versed in the profundities of revealed truth, brought together in the attempt to improve the life and character of the mystics, they would find now way of doing so; for to the mystics all movement and all rest, whether external or internal, brings illumination from the light of the lamp of prophetic revelation; and behind the light of prophetic revelation there is no other light on the face of the earth from which illumination may be received"
He goes on in trying to descripbe the mystic 'way' (tariqah), speaking of purification of the heart completely from what is other than God most high,... the 'sinking of the heart completely in the recollection of God; and the end of it is complete absorption in God.'
"Certainty reached by demonstration is knowledge ('ilm); actual acquaintance with that 'state' is immediate experience (dhawq); the acceptance of it as probable from hearsay and trial (or observation) is faith (iman). These are three degrees. 'God will raise those of you who have faith and those who have been given knowledge in degrees (sc. of honour)' (Q. 58, 12)."
He eventually goes back to teaching. In explaining why, he describes an elaborate comparison between prescribed medication and formal worship. He describes different kinds of men who respond differently to issues of truth and worship. Ultimately, at God's prodding, he realizes that the initial grounds for his retirement are no longer in effect, even though he does not have much hope in his ability to explain to others what he has come to think.
"As the Tradition has it, The heart of the believer is between two of the fingers of the Merciful. In myself I know that, even if I went back to the work of disseminating knowledge, yet I did not go back. To go back is to return to the previous state of things. Previously, however, I had been disseminating the knowledge by which worldly success is attained; by word and deed I had called men to it; and that had been my aim and intention. But now I am calling men to the knowledge whereby worldly success is given up and its low position in ithe scale of real worth is recognized. This is now my intention, my aim, my desire; God knows that this is so. It is my earnest longing that I may make myself and others better. I do not know whether I shall reach my goal or whether I shall be taken away while short of my object. I believe, however, both by certain faith and by intuition that there is no power and no might save with God, the high, the mighty, and that I do not move of myself but am moved by Him, I do not work of myself but am used by Him. I ask Him first of all to reform me and then to reform through me, to guide me and then to guide through me, to show me the truth of what is true and to grant of His bounty that I may follow it, and to show me the falsity of what is false and to grant of His bounty that I may turn away from it."
"Genuine knowledge is that which informs us that sin is a deadly poison and that the world to come is better than this; and the man who knows that does not give up the good for what is lower than it.
This knowledge is not attained by means of the various special branches of the knowledge to which most people devote their attention. As a result, most people's knowledge only makes them bolder in disobeying God most high. Genuine knowledge, however, increases a man's reverence and fear and hope; and these come between him and sins (in the strict sense) as distinct from the unintentional faults which are inseparable from man in his times of weakness. This proneness to lesser sins does not argue any weakness of faith, however. The believer, when he goes astray, repents. He is far from sinning intentionally and deliberately."
RAW is upon us for another few days.
I managed to be somewhat involved. It's not quite what I hoped for, but given other things and the fact that I wanted to sleep occasionally, not too bad.
samples:
C9H13O3N
My idea was to play with the images of the theme "Fight or Flight" and the different connotations available to symbolic representations. In example, in contrast to 'Fight', 'Flight' may refer to something like retreating ...or maybe flying. The dove is certainly flying, but is often a symbolic carrier of 'Peace' more than 'retreating' allowing 'Fight' to take on a more warlike connotation. However, when faced with all the many conflicts in the world, peace seems highly desirable (dove), but the individual response of needs to be one of rising to the challenge - not of personally retreating. The chemical symbol of the title is Adrenaline or Epinephrine, which triggers the body's 'fight or flight' response. The idea is, we have capabilities for either response.
So, .. what'll it be?
And then,
of course there is this stunning masterpiece:
I have an art historian friend who could probably expound at length the visual symbolism embedded here.
Therefore if thou bring thy gift to the altar, and there rememberest that thy brother hath ought against thee;
Leave there thy gift before the altar, and go thy way; first be reconciled to thy brother, and then come and offer thy gift.
Sometimes I think people expect that there's something easy and incomprehensibly simple about enlightenment or "The Plan" or something, and if they only knew the right thing - if that secret could be bestowed upon them or transmitted into their brains, then suddenly everything would fall into place.
When really,
even if that one line existed (maybe it does) and someone told it to you,
you wouldn't be in any condition to actually use it unless you were already configured in such a way that it could fall into place into you. And this is work that no one else can do for you.
Those people who climb the mountain looking for the wise man have no business there and will not be able to take in what he says about truth or reality or the kingdom of God until they understand how to interact with the world immediately around them. How can we ask for heaven if we cannot be at peace with those around us?
If it was me on that mountain,
I think maybe when people climbed up to ask me about the meaning of life,
I think I might tell them to go and come back when they've befriended this cat:
(She pretty much hates everything.)
Happy Birthday Ed!
and Dr. Seuss
and other people whose birthday is today
Hey Ed! Ed! .. I got you something - we put together a little party -
It's a huge stack of pancakes!
And we decorated, too
Stuff like this guy, and then next guy on the walls
and of course, being a birthday party, there's food:
and I got some people together to build you a GIANT DOME! 
... ok.
so we just happened to have some weird stuff going on today
and I took pictures of it for you.
I hope you got something better than a giant dome for your birthday.
I have this idea that training is not so much to make things easier to do,
but to make you more able to do them well, despite the conditions.
A. E. Housman (1859–1936). A Shropshire Lad. 1896.
LXII. Terence, this is stupid stuff
‘TERENCE, this is stupid stuff:
You eat your victuals fast enough;
There can’t be much amiss, ’tis clear,
To see the rate you drink your beer.
But oh, good Lord, the verse you make, 5
It gives a chap the belly-ache.
The cow, the old cow, she is dead;
It sleeps well, the horned head:
We poor lads, ’tis our turn now
To hear such tunes as killed the cow. 10
Pretty friendship ’tis to rhyme
Your friends to death before their time
Moping melancholy mad:
Come, pipe a tune to dance to, lad.’
Why, if ’tis dancing you would be, 15
There’s brisker pipes than poetry.
Say, for what were hop-yards meant,
Or why was Burton built on Trent?
Oh many a peer of England brews
Livelier liquor than the Muse, 20
And malt does more than Milton can
To justify God’s ways to man.
Ale, man, ale’s the stuff to drink
For fellows whom it hurts to think:
Look into the pewter pot 25
To see the world as the world’s not.
And faith, ’tis pleasant till ’tis past:
The mischief is that ’twill not last.
Oh I have been to Ludlow fair
And left my necktie God knows where, 30
And carried half way home, or near,
Pints and quarts of Ludlow beer:
Then the world seemed none so bad,
And I myself a sterling lad;
And down in lovely muck I’ve lain, 35
Happy till I woke again.
Then I saw the morning sky:
Heigho, the tale was all a lie;
The world, it was the old world yet,
I was I, my things were wet, 40
And nothing now remained to do
But begin the game anew.
Therefore, since the world has still
Much good, but much less good than ill,
And while the sun and moon endure 45
Luck’s a chance, but trouble’s sure,
I’d face it as a wise man would,
And train for ill and not for good.
’Tis true, the stuff I bring for sale
Is not so brisk a brew as ale: 50
Out of a stem that scored the hand
I wrung it in a weary land.
But take it: if the smack is sour,
The better for the embittered hour;
It should do good to heart and head 55
When your soul is in my soul’s stead;
And I will friend you, if I may,
In the dark and cloudy day.
There was a king reigned in the East:
There, when kings will sit to feast, 60
They get their fill before they think
With poisoned meat and poisoned drink.
He gathered all the springs to birth
From the many-venomed earth;
First a little, thence to more, 65
He sampled all her killing store;
And easy, smiling, seasoned sound,
Sate the king when healths went round.
They put arsenic in his meat
And stared aghast to watch him eat; 70
They poured strychnine in his cup
And shook to see him drink it up:
They shook, they stared as white’s their shirt:
Them it was their poison hurt.
—I tell the tale that I heard told. 75
Mithridates, he died old.
(Happy March)
Some of my friends have no sense of smell.
Years ago, one such friend gave me a hand-bound empty book to put things in. I said I'd make it the book of smells. I really haven't written enough on the topic to make a book yet though. But maybe I can start the list again here.
I shall explain.
So he couldn't smell (but he COULD taste, and enjoyed chewing on cinnamon sticks for their spicy qualities). And we're both writers, so I took it as an extension of a writing prompt to try describing smells to him with in other sensory terms such as visual, tactile, or auditory terms (and taste, too. But I'm not sure how to make that an adjective. Tasty is not right.)
These flowers are coming out in full force:
They're one of my favorite forms of plant life here because they smell wonderfully. They smell thick and mellow with a hint of creamy-yellow and violet, like how butter would smell if it tasted as good as felt in your mouth. Mildly sweet butter.
