Soul Knitting

At the End of the Year

2011-12-30T12:45:00.000-08:00

At the End of the Year

The particular mind of the ocean
Filling the coastline's longing
With such brief harvest
Of elegant, vanishing waves
Is like the mind of time
Opening us shapes of days.

As this year draws to its end,
We give thanks for the gifts it brought
And how they became inlaid within
Where neither time nor tide can touch them.

The days when the veil lifted
And the soul could see delight;
When a quiver caressed the heart
In the sheer exuberance of being here.

Surprises that came awake
In forgotten corners of old fields
Where expectation seemed to have quenched.

The slow, brooding times
When all was awkward
And the wave in the mind
Pierced every sore with salt.

The darkened days that stopped
The confidence of the dawn.

Days when beloved faces shone brighter
With light from beyond themselves;
And from the granite of some secret sorrow
A stream of buried tears loosened.

We bless this year for all we learned,
For all we loved and lost
And for the quiet way it brought us
Nearer to our invisible destination.

~ John O'Donohue ~

(To Bless the Space Between Us)

The Kingdom

2011-02-11T13:53:00.000-08:00

The Kingdom

At times
the heart
stands back
and looks at the body,
looks at the mind,
as a lion
quietly looks
at the not-quite-itself,
not-quite-another,
moving of shadows and grass.

Wary, but with interest,
considers its kingdom.

Then seeing
all that will be,
heart once again enters --
enters hunger, enters sorrow,
enters finally losing it all.
To know, if nothing else,
what it once owned.

~ Jane Hirshfield ~

(The October Palace)

The Sonnets to Orpheus, Part Two, XII

2010-12-22T06:00:00.000-08:00

The Sonnets to Orpheus, Part Two, XII

Want the change. Be inspired by the flame
where everything shines as it disappears.
The artist, when sketching, loves nothing so much
as the curve of the body as it turns away.

What locks itself in sameness has congealed.
Is it safer to be gray and numb?
What turns hard becomes rigid
and is easily shattered.

Pour yourself out like a fountain.
Flow into the knowledge that what you are seeking
finishes often at the start, and, with ending, begins.

Every happiness is the child of a separation
it did not think it could survive. And Daphne, becoming a laurel,
dares you to become the wind.

~ Rainer Maria Rilke ~

(In Praise of Mortality, translated and edited by
Anita Barrows and Joanna Macy)

2010-09-19T08:55:00.000-07:00

THE SEA

The pull is so strong we will not believe
the drawing tide is meant for us,
I mean the gift, the sea,
the place where all the rivers meet.

Easy to forget,
how the great receiving depth
untamed by what we need
needs only what will flow its way.

Easy to feel so far away
and the body so old
it might not even stand the touch.

But what would that be like
feeling the tide rise
out of the numbness inside
toward the place to which we go
washing over our worries of money,
the illusion of being ahead,
the grief of being behind,
our limbs young
rising from such a depth?

What would that be like
even in this century
driving toward work with the others,
moving down the roads
among the thousands swimming upstream,
as if growing toward arrival,
feeling the currents of the great desire,
carrying time toward tomorrow?

Tomorrow seen today, for itself,
the sea where all the rivers meet, unbound,
unbroken for a thousand miles, the surface
of a great silence, the movement of a moment
left completely to itself, to find ourselves adrift,
safe in our unknowing, our very own,
our great tide, our great receiving, our

wordless, fiery, unspoken,
hardly remembered, gift of true longing.

~ David Whyte ~

(Where Many Rivers Meet)

Philosophy

2010-05-30T05:28:00.000-07:00

Philosophy

I used to sit in the cafe of existentialism,
lost in a blue cloud of cigarette smoke,
contemplating the suicide a tiny Frenchman
might commit by leaping from the rim of my brandyglass.

I used to hunger to be engaged
as I walked the long shaded boulevards,
eyeing women of all nationalities,
a difficult paperback riding in my raincoat pocket.

But these days I like my ontology in an armchair,
a rope hammock, or better still, a warm bath
in a cork-lined room--disengaged, soaking
in the calm, restful waters of speculation.

Afternoons, when I leave the house
for the woods, I think of Aquinas at his desk,
fingers interlocked upon his stomach,
as he deduces another proof for God's existence,

intricate as the branches of these bare November trees.
And as I kick through the leaves and snap
the windfallen twigs, I consider Leibniz on his couch
reaching the astonishing conclusion that monads,

those windowless units of matter, must have souls.
But when I finally reach the top of the hill
and sit down on the flat tonnage of this boulder,
I think of Spinoza, most rarefied of them all.

I look beyond the treetops and the distant ridges
and see him sitting in a beam of Dutch sunlight
slowly stirring his milky tea with a spoon.
Since dawn he has been at his bench grinding lenses,

but now he is leaving behind the saucer and table,
the smokey chimneys and tile roofs of Amsterdam,
even the earth itself, pale blue, aqueous,
cloud-enshrined, titled back on the stick of its axis.

He is rising into that high dome of thought
where loose pages of Shelley float on the air,
where all the formulas of calculus unravel,
tumbling in the radiance of a round Platonic sun--

that zone just below the one where angels accelerate
and the ampitheatrical rose of Dante unfolds.
And now I stand up on the ledge to salute you, Spinoza,
and when I whistle to the dog and start down the hill,

I can feel the thick glass of your eyes upon me
as I step from the rock to glacial rock, and on her
as she sniffs her way through the leaves,
her tail straight back, her body low to the ground.

~ Billy Collins ~

(The Art of Drowning)

Mr. Tuttles Woke UP FINALLY!

2010-04-17T12:27:00.000-07:00

Mr. T is up and about. YEA!

Spring Flowers

2010-04-15T05:47:00.000-07:00

It's been a while! Thanks so much to those of you who were worried about my absence. Luna and I are very well. I've just been terribly busy with other projects and had sadly neglected this blog. No worries. I'll do my best to update more often here. And how kind of you to think of me in my absence. Really. Hugs.

Hawks

2010-02-14T05:55:00.000-08:00

Hawks

Surely, you too have longed for this --
to pour yourself out
on the rising circles of the air
to ride, unthinking,
on the flesh of emptiness.

Can you claim, in your civilized life,
that you have never leaned toward
the headlong dive, the snap of bones,
the chance to be so terrible,
so free from evil, beyond choice?

The air that they are riding
is the same breath as your own.
How could you not remember?
That same swift stillness binds
your cells in balance, rushes
through the pulsing circles of your blood.

Each breath proclaims it --
the flash of feathers, the chance to rest
on such a muscled quietness,
to be in that fierce presence,
wholly wind, wholly wild.

~ Lynn Ungar ~

(Blessing the Bread)

A Map to the Next World

2010-02-07T05:02:00.000-08:00

A Map to the Next World

In the last days of the fourth world I wished to make a map
for those who would climb through the hole in the sky.

My only tools were the desires of humans as they emerged from the killing fields,
from the bedrooms and the kitchens.

For the soul is a wanderer with many hands and feet.

The map must be of sand and can't be read by ordinary light.
It must carry fire to the next tribal town, for renewal of spirit.

In the legend are instructions on the language of the land,
how it was we forgot to acknowledge the gift, as if we were not in it or of it.

Take note of the proliferation of supermarkets and malls, the altars of money.
They best describe the detour from grace.

Keep track of the errors of our forgetfulness; a fog steals our children while we sleep.

Flowers of rage spring up in the depression, the monsters are born there of nuclear anger.

Trees of ashes wave good-bye to good-bye and the map appears to disappear.

We no longer know the names of the birds here,
how to speak to them by their personal names.

Once we knew everything in this lush promise.

What I am telling you is real and is printed in a warning on the map.
Our forgetfulness stalks us, walks the earth behind us,
leaving a trail of paper diapers, needles and wasted blood.

An imperfect map will have to do little one.

The place of entry is the sea of your mother's blood,
your father's small death as he longs to know himself in another.

There is no exit.

The map can be interpreted through the wall of the intestine --
a spiral on the road of knowledge.

You will travel through the membrane of death,
smell cooking from the encampment where our relatives make a feast
of fresh deer meat and corn soup, in the Milky Way.

They have never left us; we abandoned them for science.

And when you take your next breath as we enter the fifth world there will be no X,
no guide book with words you can carry.

You will have to navigate by your mother's voice, renew the song she is singing.

Fresh courage glimmers from planets.

And lights the map printed with the blood of history,
a map you will have to know by your intention, by the language of suns.

When you emerge note the tracks of the monster slayers
where they entered the cities of artificial light and killed what was killing us.

You will see red cliffs. They are the heart, contain the ladder.

A white deer will come to greet you when the last human climbs from the destruction.

Remember the hole of our shame marking the act of abandoning our tribal grounds.

We were never perfect.

Yet, the journey we make together is perfect on this earth
who was once a star and made the same mistakes as humans.

We might make them again, she said.

Crucial to finding the way is this: there is no beginning or end.

You must make your own map.

~ Joy Harjo ~

(A Map to the Next World: Poems)

Out of God's Hat

2010-02-01T05:08:00.000-08:00

Out of God's Hat

The stars poured into the sky
Out of a Magician's hat last night,
And all of them have fallen into my hair.
Some have even tangled my eyelashes
Into luminous, playful knots.

Wayfarer,
You are welcome to cut a radiant tress
That lays upon my shoulders.
Wrap it around your trembling heart and body
That craves divine comfort and warmth.
I am like a pitcher of milk
In the hands of a mother who loves you.

All of my contents now
Have been churned into dancing suns and moons.

Lean your sweet neck and mouth
Out of that dark nest where you hide,
I will pour effulgence into your mind.

Come spring
You can find me rolling in the fields
They are exploding in
Holy battles

Of scents, of sounds - everything is
A brilliant colored nova on a stem.

Forest animals hear me laughing
And surrender their deepest instincts and fears,

They come charging into meadows
To lick my hands and face,

This makes me so happy,
I become so happy

That my rising wink turns into a magic baton.
When my soft-eyed creatures see that wonderful signal
We all burst into singing

And make strange and primal beautiful sounds!

My only regret in this world then becomes:

That your shyness keeps you from placing
Your starving body against God

And seeing the Beloved become so pleased
With your courage

That his belly begins to rock and rock,
Then more planets get to leap
Onto the welcome mat of existence
All because
Of your previous love.

The friend has turned my verse into sacred pollen.
When a breeze comes by

Falcons and butterflies
And playful gangs of young angels
Mounted on emerald spears

Take flight from me like a great sandstorm
That can blind you to all but the Truth!

Dear one
Even if you have no net to catch Venus
My music will circle this earth for hundreds of years
And fall like resplendent debris,
Holy seed, onto a fertile woman.

For Hafiz
Wants to help you laugh at your every
Desire.

Hafiz
Wants you to know

Your life within God's arms,
Your dance within God's
Arms

Is already

Perfect!

~ Hafiz ~

(The Gift -- versions of Hafiz by Daniel Ladinsky)

Skateboard Riding Dog!!!

2010-01-29T05:18:00.000-08:00

Skateboarding Bulldog @ Yahoo! Video

Very cute.

Trough

2010-01-17T05:19:00.000-08:00

Trough

There is a trough in waves,
A low spot
Where horizon disappears
And only sky
And water
Are our company.

And there we lose our way
Unless
We rest, knowing the wave will bring us
To its crest again.

There we may drown
If we let fear
Hold us within its grip and shake us
Side to side,
And leave us flailing, torn, disoriented.

But if we rest there
In the trough,
Are silent,
Being with
The low part of the wave,
Keeping
Our energy and
Noticing the shape of things,
The flow,
Then time alone
Will bring us to another
Place
Where we can see
Horizon, see the land again,
Regain our sense
Of where
We are,
And where we need to swim.

~ Judy Brown ~

(The Sea Accepts All Rivers)

Haiti quake survivors clamor for food

2010-01-16T06:52:00.000-08:00

Photo credit: Damon Winter

Haiti quake survivors clamor for food - Haiti earthquake- msnbc.com

"Obviously, that is only a drop in the bucket in the face of the massive need, but the agency will be scaling up to feed approximately 1 million people within 15 days and 2 million people within a month," he said.
Troops from the U.S. Army's 82nd Airborne Division began setting up an aid station on a golf course in an affluent part of the city, but they had no supplies to hand out yet and Capt. John Hartsock said it would be another two days before they could start distributing food and water.
"We've got to wait until we've got enough established so we can hand it out in a civilized fashion," Hartsock said.

Why oh why can't whoever is in charge and has the helicopters just do a fast fly-by and dump food and water out for these people? Damn. At this stage, THEY ARE STARVING!!!! And it will be too late to 'hand it out in a civilized fashion.' There is already fighting...dump the damn food and water out EVERYWHERE possible from the helos!!!! WTF? They need emergency help NOW. We need to be orderly? They will be dead.

On Assignment: Prayers in the Dark - Lens Blog - NYTimes.com

If you can't feed a hundred people, then feed just one.
-Mother Teresa

Any Morning

2010-01-10T12:24:00.000-08:00

Any Morning

Just lying on the couch and being happy.
Only humming a little, the quiet sound in the head.
Trouble is busy elsewhere at the moment, it has
so much to do in the world.

People who might judge are mostly asleep; they can't
monitor you all the time, and sometimes they forget.
When dawn flows over the hedge you can
get up and act busy.

Little corners like this, pieces of Heaven
left lying around, can be picked up and saved.
People wont even see that you have them,
they are so light and easy to hide.

Later in the day you can act like the others.
You can shake your head. You can frown.

~ William Stafford ~

(The Way It Is)

Ithaka

2010-01-10T05:45:00.000-08:00

Ithaka

As you set out for Ithaka
hope the voyage is a long one,
full of adventure, full of discovery.
Laistrygonians and Cyclops,
angry Poseidon—don’t be afraid of them:
you’ll never find things like that on your way
as long as you keep your thoughts raised high,
as long as a rare excitement
stirs your spirit and your body.
Laistrygonians and Cyclops,
wild Poseidon—you won’t encounter them
unless you bring them along inside your soul,
unless your soul sets them up in front of you.

Hope the voyage is a long one.
May there be many a summer morning when,
with what pleasure, what joy,
you come into harbors seen for the first time;
may you stop at Phoenician trading stations
to buy fine things,
mother of pearl and coral, amber and ebony,
sensual perfume of every kind—
as many sensual perfumes as you can;
and may you visit many Egyptian cities
to gather stores of knowledge from their scholars.

Keep Ithaka always in your mind.
Arriving there is what you are destined for.
But do not hurry the journey at all.
Better if it lasts for years,
so you are old by the time you reach the island,
wealthy with all you have gained on the way,
not expecting Ithaka to make you rich.

Ithaka gave you the marvelous journey.
Without her you would not have set out.
She has nothing left to give you now.

And if you find her poor, Ithaka won’t have fooled you.
Wise as you will have become, so full of experience,
you will have understood by then what these Ithakas mean.

~ C.P. Cavafy ~

(Collected Poems, Translated by Edmund Keeley and Philip Sherrard)
To hear this poem read by Sean Connery and music by Vangelis.

Sea Shepherd's Fight For Whales Loses A Bow

2010-01-06T12:54:00.000-08:00

"If a whale is hit by an exploding harpoon near Antarctica and the world doesn’t have a way to witness that, does it make a sound?" said Andrew C. Revkin of the New York Times.

Photo credit: JoAnne McArthur / Sea Shepherd Conservation Society

NewYorkTimes.com/Science: "This photo taken on January 6, 2010 from the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society shows the Sea Shepherd's ship Ady Gil (bottom), a wave-piercing boat formerly known as "Earthrace", after it was rammed by Japanese whaling vessel Shonan Maru No. 2 (background) in Antarctic waters. The space-age powerboat sent to harass Japanese whalers was rammed and sliced in two in its very first clash, activists said, dramatically escalating hostilities in icy Antarctic seas. All six crew on the Ady Gil trimaran, which holds the round-the-world record, were rescued unharmed, the Sea Shepherd animal rights group said in a statement.

"An international moratorium on commercial whaling was imposed in 1986 but Japan kills hundreds each year using a loophole that allows "lethal research" on the animals. Japan makes no secret of the fact that whale meat ends up on dinner tables, and accuses Western nations of not respecting its culture," states France24.

So, let's see. The Andy Gil is sitting there, doing nothing, very little movement based on prop wash. (I captained a almost-hundred-ton boat for some time, I KNOW prop wash.) Then, at the last moment, the Andy Gil seems to accelerate to try and get out of the way. You'll notice that the Andy Gil doesn't start showing prop wash indicating major forward movement UNTIL AFTER the wake of the Whale Killer Japanese Boat has washed PAST THE stern of the Andy Gil. And as the Whale Killing Japanese Boat speeds by, it is STILL is firing water cannons at the Andy Gil as she takes on water.

Hmmmm.... I guarantee you the Captain of the Andy Gil is NOT going to risk the crew's life at the hull of that Whale Killer ship by RAMMING it at the bow point. And while Sea Shepard takes great risks with their ships and crew, they are NOT going to do it purposefully by just sitting there.

Here is another angle from the video from onboard a Sea Shepard Vessel: http://www.seashepherd.org/matilda/video.html

This stinks of rotten Whale Meat Eaters.

My next car will not be Japanese. Sadly. I'll also never buy a Nikon camera. Why are Japanese still finding WHALE MEAT something that MUST be in their diet? Go Sea Shepard.

The real threat to whales is whaling, which has endangered many whale species.

--Dave Barry

Looks like Senator Ben Nelson of Nebraska is BRIBING Nebraska Citizens for re-election

2010-01-05T05:30:00.000-08:00

And in the process, screwing the REST OF AMERICA!

Jan. 5 – “In the final bargaining over the Senate's insurance bill, Democratic leaders agreed to exempt one state, Nebraska, from the cost of expanding Medicaid eligibility. Sen. Ben Nelson, the centrist Democrat who has represented Nebraska in the Senate since 2001 and is up for re-election in 2012, was a crucial vote needed in order to get the 60-vote supermajority to ensure passage of the bill.

While the 49 other states will need to pay a share of the cost of covering the 20 million new people who'll be eligible for Medicaid, Nebraska's cost will be paid by the federal taxpayers. Nebraska Gov. Dave Heineman has criticized the exemption and Nelson has offered to get it removed from the bill if Heineman wants.”

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/34679369/ns/health-health_care/
_____________________________________________________

Great. If it gets passed, Nelson gets paid off by being reelected. Congratulations America. ANOTHER non-ethical congressman.

Simply Recipes' "Roasted Brussels Sprouts"

"The American Republic will endure until the day

Congress discovers that it can bribe the public with the public's money."
--Alexis de Tocqueville

If To Say It Once

2010-01-03T06:35:00.000-08:00

If to say it once
And once only, then still
To say: Yes.

And say it complete,
Say it as if the word
Filled the whole moment
With its absolute saying.

Later for "but,"
Later for "if."

Now
Only the single syllable
That is the beloved,
That is the world.

~ Gregory Orr ~

(How Beautiful the Beloved)

New Year's Resolution

2010-01-01T05:07:00.000-08:00

New Year's Resolution

Well, I did it again, bringing in
that infant Purity across the land,
welcoming Innocence with gin
in New York, waiting up
to help Chicago,
Denver, L.A., Fairbanks, Hon-
olulu--and now
the high school bands are alienating Dallas,
and girls in gold and tangerine
have lost all touch with Pasadena,
and young men with muscles and missing teeth
are dreaming of personal fouls,
and it's all beginning again, just like
those other Januaries in
instant reply.

But I've had enough
of turning to look back, the old
post-morteming of defeat:
people I loved but didn't touch,
friends I haven't seen for years,
strangers who smiled but didn't speak--failures,
failures. No,
I refuse to leave it at that, because
somewhere, off camera,
January is coming like Venus
up from the murk of December, re-
virginized, as innocent
of loss as any dawn. Resolved: this year
I'm going to break my losing streak,
I'm going to stay alert, reach out,
speak when not spoken to,
read the minds of people in the streets.
I'm going to practice every day,
stay in training, and be moderate
in all things.
All things but love.

~ Philip Appleman ~

(New and Selected Poems, 1956-1996)

Happy New Year

2009-12-31T05:28:00.000-08:00

Happy New Year and Blessings to All!!!!

Starting New
"A Moment Of Choice"

There are times in our lives that lend themselves to starting something new. The beginning of a new year, finishing school, leaving a job, or changing homes—these all are times that turn our minds to fresh starts. Their advantage is that they bring with them the energy of that event, creating a tide of change around them that we can ride to our next shoreline. But we can choose to start anew anytime. In any moment we can decide that a bad day or a relationship that’s gotten off on the wrong foot can be started again. It is a mental shift that allows us to clean the slate and approach anything with fresh eyes, and we can make that choice at any time.

Starting new is most powerful when we focus our attention to what we are choosing to create. Giving all of our attention to the unwanted aspects of our lives allows what we resist to persist. We need to remember to leave enough room in the process of new beginnings to be kind to ourselves, because it takes time to become accustomed to anything new, no matter how much we like it. There is no need to get down on ourselves if we don't reach our new goals instantly. Instead, we acknowledge the forward motion and choose to reset and start again, knowing that with each choice we learn, grow, and move forward.

Making the choice to start anew has its own energy—it's a promise made to you. The forward momentum creates a sort of vacuum behind it, pulling toward you all you need to help you continue moving in your chosen direction. Once the journey has begun, it may take unexpected turns, but it never really ends. Like cycles in nature, there are periods of obvious growth and periods of dormancy that signal a time of waiting for the right moment to burst forth. Each time we choose to start anew we dedicate ourselves to becoming the best we are able to be.

Quoted from "The Daily Om."

Silently Out of the Night

2009-12-13T05:10:00.000-08:00

God speaks to each of us as he makes us,
then walks with us silently out of the night.

These are words we dimly hear:

You, sent out beyond your recall,
go to the limits of your longing.
Embody me.

Flare up like flame
and make big shadows I can move in.

Let everything happen to you: beauty and terror.
Just keep going. No feeling is final.
Don't let yourself lose me.

Nearby is the country they call life.
You will know it by its seriousnes.

Give me your hand.

~ Rainer Maria Rilke ~

(Rilke’s "Book of Hours: Love Poems to God,"translated by Anita Barrows and Joanna Macy)

Ethel M Christmas Lights

2009-12-12T05:40:00.000-08:00

©2009 K.C.C.

Ethel M Chocolate Factory in Las Vegas is awash in lights for the holidays! Wow. I spent a few hours in the freezing cold (had my SNOW pants and jacket on) takings lots and lots of photos. What fun!

And today, more rain in Vegas and SNOW on the mountains! Stay warm!

Simply Recipes' "Turkey Tetrazzini"

When Christmas bells are swinging above the fields of snow,
we hear sweet voices ringing from lands of long ago,
and etched on vacant places are half-forgotten faces of friends we used to cherish
and loves we used to know.”
--Ella Wheeler Wilcox

Red Rock Canyon Snow

2009-12-11T05:06:00.000-08:00

Red Rock Canyon ©K.C.C.

Snow in the desert! Our desert is just beautiful this week. It snowed Monday up in the Spring Mountains which includes Red Rock Canyon State Park. I drove up during the snow in the late afternoon. The area was covered and the snow keep falling for the few hours I was there. It was snowing so hard and fast that I finally just quit getting out of the car to take pictures. The last hour, most of my pics were taken from the front seat :::gg:::.

Las Vegas is getting some more snow in the mountains today. And it's COLD. I don't think we've been above 45* all week. Which is really cold for us. Brrrrrr.

Simply Recipes' "Maple Cookies"

"Pursue some path, however narrow and crooked,
in which you can walk with love and reverence."
— Henry David Thoreau

Luna

2009-12-09T05:47:00.000-08:00

Now that's a dog!! My Luna girl. Lovely in RED!!

"It came to me that every time I lose a dog they take a piece of my heart with them. And every new dog who comes into my life gifts me with a piece of their heart. If I live long enough, all the components of my heart will be dog, and I will become as generous and loving as they are."

-Unknown

2009-12-06T05:28:00.000-08:00

Each of Us Has A Name

Each of us has a name
given by God
and given by our parents

Each of us has a name
given by our stature and our smile
and given by what we wear

Each of us has a name
given by the mountains
and given by our walls

Each of us has a name
given by the stars
and given by our neighbors

Each of us has a name
given by our sins
and given by our longing

Each of us has a name
given by our enemies
and given by our love

Each of us has a name
given by our celebrations
and given by our work

Each of us has a name
given by the seasons
and given by our blindness

Each of us has a name
given by the sea
and given by
our death.

~ Zelda ~

(Trans. by Marcia Lee Falk in
Beloved on the Earth, ed. by
J. Perman, D. Cooper, M. Hart, and P. Mittlefehldt)

Cloud-Hidden

2009-12-03T05:33:00.000-08:00

Cloud-Hidden

This chapter is closed now,
not one word more
until we meet some day
and the voices rising
to the window
take wing and fly.

Open the old casement
to the lands we have forgotten,
look to the mountains and ridgeways
and the steep valleys, quilted by green,
here, as the last words fall away,
the great and silent rivers of life
are flowing into the oceans,
and on a day like any other
they will carry you again,
abandoned,
on the currents you have fought,
to the place where you did not know
you belonged.

And just as you came into life
surprised
you go out again,
lifted,
cloud-hidden
from one unknown
to another
and fall and turn
and appear again in the mountains

not remembering
how in the beginning
you refused
to join,
could not speak of,
did not even know
you were that
deep
calm
welling
almost forgotten
spring
of eternal presence.

~ David Whyte ~

(Where Many Rivers Meet)

:::Miss you Dad:::

Grace

2009-11-29T05:45:00.000-08:00

Grace

Thanks & blessings be
to the Sun & the Earth
for this bread & this wine,
this fruit, this meat, this salt,
this food;
thanks be & blessing to them
who prepare it, who serve it;
thanks & blessings to them
who share it
(& also the absent & the dead).
Thanks & Blessing to them who bring it
(may they not want),
to them who plant & tend it,
harvest & gather it
(may they not want);
thanks & blessing to them who work
& blessing to them who cannot;
may they not want - for their hunger
sours the wine & robs
the taste from the salt.
Thanks be for the sustenance & strength
for our dance & work of justice, of peace.

~ Rafael Jesus Gonzalez ~

(In Praise of Fetile Land, edited by Claudia Mauro)

2009-11-28T05:42:00.000-08:00

Thanksgiving

I have been trying to read
the script cut in these hills—
a language carved in the shimmer of stubble
and the solid lines of soil, spoken
in the thud of apples falling
and the rasp of corn stalks finally bare.

The pheasants shout it with a rusty creak
as they gather in the fallen grain,
the blackbirds sing it
over their shoulders in parting,
and gold leaf illuminates the manuscript
where it is written in the trees.

Transcribed onto my human tongue
I believe it might sound like a lullaby,
or the simplest grace at table.
Across the gathering stillness
simply this: "For all that we have received,
dear Goddess, make us truly grateful."

~ Lynn Ungar ~

(Blessing the Bread)

2009-11-26T05:05:00.000-08:00

Greetings to the Natural World.

The People

Today we have gathered and we see that the cycles of life continue. We have been given the duty to live in balance and harmony with each other and all living things. So now, we bring our minds together as one as we give greetings and thanks to each other as people.

Now our minds are one.

The Earth Mother

We are all thankful to our Mother, the Earth, for she gives us all that we need for life. She supports our feet as we walk about upon her. It gives us joy that she continues to care for us as she has from the beginning of time. To our mother, we send greetings and thanks.

Now our minds are one.

The Waters

We give thanks to all the waters of the world for quenching our thirst and providing us with strength. Water is life. We know its power in many forms-waterfalls and rain, mists and streams, rivers and oceans. With one mind, we send greetings and thanks to the spirit of Water.

Now our minds are one.

The Fish

We turn our minds to the all the Fish life in the water. They were instructed to cleanse and purify the water. They also give themselves to us as food. We are grateful that we can still find pure water. So, we turn now to the Fish and send our greetings and thanks.

Now our minds are one.

The Plants

Now we turn toward the vast fields of Plant life. As far as the eye can see, the Plants grow, working many wonders. They sustain many life forms. With our minds gathered together, we give thanks and look forward to seeing Plant life for many generations to come.

Now our minds are one.

The Food Plants

With one mind, we turn to honor and thank all the Food Plants we harvest from the garden. Since the beginning of time, the grains, vegetables, beans and berries have helped the people survive. Many other living things draw strength from them too. We gather all the Plant Foods together as one and send them a greeting of thanks.

Now our minds are one.

The Medicine Herbs

Now we turn to all the Medicine herbs of the world. From the beginning they were instructed to take away sickness. They are always waiting and ready to heal us. We are happy there are still among us those special few who remember how to use these plants for healing. With one mind, we send greetings and thanks to the Medicines and to the keepers of the Medicines.

Now our minds are one.

The Animals

We gather our minds together to send greetings and thanks to all the Animal life in the world. They have many things to teach us as people. We are honored by them when they give up their lives so we may use their bodies as food for our people. We see them near our homes and in the deep forests. We are glad they are still here and we hope that it will always be so.

Now our minds are one

The Trees

We now turn our thoughts to the Trees. The Earth has many families of Trees who have their own instructions and uses. Some provide us with shelter and shade, others with fruit, beauty and other useful things. Many people of the world use a Tree as a symbol of peace and strength. With one mind, we greet and thank the Tree life.

Now our minds are one.

The Birds

We put our minds together as one and thank all the Birds who move and fly about over our heads. The Creator gave them beautiful songs. Each day they remind us to enjoy and appreciate life. The Eagle was chosen to be their leader. To all the Birds-from the smallest to the largest-we send our joyful greetings and thanks.

Now our minds are one.

The Four Winds

We are all thankful to the powers we know as the Four Winds. We hear their voices in the moving air as they refresh us and purify the air we breathe. They help us to bring the change of seasons. From the four directions they come, bringing us messages and giving us strength. With one mind, we send our greetings and thanks to the Four Winds.

Now our minds are one.

The Thunderers

Now we turn to the west where our grandfathers, the Thunder Beings, live. With lightning and thundering voices, they bring with them the water that renews life. We are thankful that they keep those evil things made by Okwiseres underground. We bring our minds together as one to send greetings and thanks to our Grandfathers, the Thunderers.

Now our minds are one.

The Sun

We now send greetings and thanks to our eldest Brother, the Sun. Each day without fail he travels the sky from east to west, bringing the light of a new day. He is the source of all the fires of life. With one mind, we send greetings and thanks to our Brother, the Sun.

Now our minds are one.

Grandmother Moon

We put our minds together to give thanks to our oldest Grandmother, the Moon, who lights the night-time sky. She is the leader of woman all over the world, and she governs the movement of the ocean tides. By her changing face we measure time, and it is the Moon who watches over the arrival of children here on Earth. With one mind, we send greetings and thanks to our Grandmother, the Moon.

Now our minds are one.

The Stars

We give thanks to the Stars who are spread across the sky like jewelry. We see them in the night, helping the Moon to light the darkness and bringing dew to the gardens and growing things. When we travel at night, they guide us home. With our minds gathered together as one, we send greetings and thanks to the Stars.

Now our minds are one.

The Enlightened Teachers

We gather our minds to greet and thank the enlightened Teachers who have come to help throughout the ages. When we forget how to live in harmony, they remind us of the way we were instructed to live as people. With one mind, we send greetings and thanks to these caring teachers.

Now our minds are one.

The Creator

Now we turn our thoughts to the creator, or Great Spirit, and send greetings and thanks for all the gifts of Creation. Everything we need to live a good life is here on this Mother Earth. For all the love that is still around us, we gather our minds together as one and send our choicest words of greetings and thanks to the Creator.

Now our minds are one.

Closing Words

We have now arrived at the place where we end our words. Of all the things we have named, it was not our intention to leave anything out. If something was forgotten, we leave it to each individual to send such greetings and thanks in their own way.

Now our minds are one.

'Ohenton Kariwahtekwen' - Iroquois Thanksgiving Address

Still

2009-11-15T05:00:00.000-08:00

Still

I said I will find what is lowly
and put the roots of my identity
down there:
each day I'll wake up
and find the lowly nearby,
a handy focus and reminder,
a ready measure of my significance,
the voice by which I would be heard,
the wills, the kinds of selfishness
I could
freely adopt as my own:

but though I have looked everywhere,
I can find nothing
to give myself to:
everything is

magnificent with existence, is in
surfeit of glory:
nothing is diminished,
nothing has been diminished for me:

I said what is more lowly than the grass:
ah, underneath,
a ground-crust of dry-burnt moss:
I looked at it closely
and said this can be my habitat: but
nestling in I
found
below the brown exterior
green mechanisms beyond the intellect
awaiting resurrection in rain: so I got up

and ran saying there is nothing lowly in the universe:
I found a beggar:
he had stumps for legs: nobody was paying
him any attention: everybody went on by:
I nestled in and found his life:
there, love shook his body like a devastation:
I said
though I have looked everywhere
I can find nothing lowly
in the universe:

I whirled though transfigurations up and down,
transfigurations of size and shape and place:

at one sudden point came still,
stood in wonder:
moss, beggar, weed, tick, pine, self, magnificent
with being!

~ A. R. Ammons ~

(Collected Poems 1951-1971)

Hubble Ultra Deep Field

2009-11-10T05:12:00.000-08:00

This is so amazing. Just watch! And if you can, watch in full screen by clicking on the 'second to the left' button at the bottom of the above frame.

Zion Gold & Red

2009-10-27T05:19:00.000-07:00

"Zion Gold & Red" ©2009 K.C.C.

Fall is finally upon us here in the desert southwest. The weather is fantastic! Zion National Park is such a close road trip out of Las Vegas, 3 hours max, that it is easy to run up in the morning and return the same evening. Since the Zion valley floor is so narrow, direct sun time is somewhat limited. Which is either a photographic blessing or curse depending on what you want to capture. So plan your photographic timing around the light times. Both 'sunrise' and 'sunset' are vastly different than on a flatter plane.

Above trees standing along the river are back-lit showing off their greens and golds. Most of the reds are already gone at both the upper and lower levels of the valley. Nevertheless, all the gold and yellow is stunning against the red sandstone walls and cliffs.

The weather is perfect for anything...camping, hiking, and picnicking. I hiked up to the beginning of "The Narrows" but didn't pass the water entry line. Didn't have on waterproof day-wear or more importantly, a dry sack for the camera gear. (Wet cameras would make it an expensive trip.) The 'hike' took about 2 hours up because I had to keep stopping to photographic something. So much Autumn splendour to enjoy and photograph. Your 'enjoyment' time will vary ;-).

Lots of people were out and it was fun interacting with them. Everyone seems to always want to know, "WHAT are you taking a photo of?" Or they'll comment as they walk by, "That sure is the shot of the day." Then when they see me somewhere else NOT taking a picture, they'll want to know how my photos came out. Tourists and photo pros alike all want to exchange emails to share what they have seen and captured.

I've noticed carrying a camera larger than a sandwich is kind of like walking with Luna. One is always noticed and 50% of the time some interaction takes place. People are funny, as if seeing a camera or a dog out of the house is some new experience. We're a weird species we are.

Simply Recipes' "Spicy Vegetarian Chili"

“May your trails be crooked, winding, lonesome, dangerous, leading to the most amazing view. May your mountains rise into and above the clouds.”

--Edward Abbey

The Wanderer

2009-10-23T05:24:00.000-07:00

Look what I found wandering about at the Valley of Fire. This Tarantula was about the size of my palm and quite the fast walker. I had already used up both my CF cards shooting the Valley of Fire but, as always, had my Sony P&S with me. Got about 15 shots before I decided to let it meander on its way. It didn't rear up once which I was waiting for so I guess I didn't scare it too much with the black box zooming in about 5 inches away. Could have watched it for an hour if I had had the time.

While I RUN from other spiders, Tarantulas never seem to make my nervous system jump or crawl in the same manner as ugly, creepy, jaw-grinding little 8-legged runners of horror. YUCK.

One another note, we're going to be 82* today. We've had a beautiful fall so far. It is definitely the time to be out in the desert.

Simply Recipes' "Apple Walnut Gorgonzola Rustic Tart"

There are only two options regarding commitment. You're either IN or you're OUT. There's no such thing as life in-between.

-- Pat Riley

Red Car

2009-09-29T19:47:00.000-07:00

Last weekend was the Henderson Super Run. 1000's of cars take over Water Street along with 1000's of people looking at said cars. I took about 300 photos. This is one. It's been 'photoshopped' a bit. What a great program. I covered the street in gravel and made the red truck next to this hot rod disappear by 'covering' it in whatever purple bush had been sticking up behind it. Did a number of other tweaks too. Big fun.

Ode I. 11 - Horace

2009-09-27T05:08:00.000-07:00

Ode I. 11

Leucon, no one’s allowed to know his fate,
Not you, not me: don’t ask, don’t hunt for answers
In tea leaves or palms. Be patient with whatever comes.
This could be our last winter, it could be many
More, pounding the Tuscan Sea on these rocks:
Do what you must, be wise, cut your vines
And forget about hope. Time goes running, even
As we talk. Take the present, the future’s no one’s affair.

~ Horace ~

(The Essential Horace, edited and translated by Burton Raffel)

September Meditation

2009-09-20T05:26:00.000-07:00

September Meditation

I do not know if the seasons remember their history or if the days and
nights by which we count time remember their own passing.
I do not know if the oak tree remembers its planting or if the pine
remembers its slow climb toward sun and stars.
I do not know if the squirrel remembers last fall's gathering or if the
bluejay remembers the meaning of snow.
I do not know if the air remembers September or if the night remembers
the moon.
I do not know if the earth remembers the flowers from last spring or if
the evergreen remembers that it shall stay so.
Perhaps that is the reason for our births -- to be the memory for
creation.
Perhaps salvation is something very different than anyone ever expected.
Perhaps this will be the only question we will have to answer:
"What can you tell me about September?"

~ Burton D. Carley ~

Luxor At Night

2009-08-21T05:57:00.000-07:00

Recently I did a really fun 'field trip' with the Nevada Camera Club. It's interesting to see my home town in a different manner...with a different eye so to speak....than I'm used too. As an almost-native (30+ years), I don't do much touring inside the city. This field trip had me out on the Strip at 11:00 p.m. taking photos with all the tourists. It was hot, jam-packed and fun.

We also had the opportunity to take photos of the World Market Center downtown and from a condo in the Panorama Towers. This is one of the captures I got from there:

Luxor At Night

Photo: Me (©K.C.C.)

Night photography is WAY more difficult than I ever imaged in Vegas. The lights get 'blown out' on timed exposures. But this, after some Photoshopping, came out pretty good I think. Of course, it looks better at the original size of 5+ mbs as opposed to 65 kbs. But, this is nice anyway.

Simply Recipes' "Tomato Pie"

Man, I really like Vegas.
-Elvis Presley

Great Barrier Reef Dead in 20 Years

2009-08-08T14:03:00.000-07:00

Phil Walter/Getty Images

"An aerial view of The Great Barrier Reef on August 7 in Cairns, Australia. A recent report by marine scientist Charlie Veron claims that the reef will be so degraded by warming seas that it will be gone within 20 years, and that this situation is now irreversible. "

I would imagine this is now happening to much of the reef system in the Caribbean too. How sad for all the living things in the ocean. Mankind seems to ultimately contaminate and kill everything it touches in time.

I spent a few years living in the Caribbean. All the undersea creatures that befriended man ultimately ended up dead. Whether it was a grouper that would tag along at a fin edge or the turtles that loved to swim and bite the bubbles of exhaled breath. A barracuda that liked to swim next to me just waiting for a dropped tidbit while I fed the Southern Stingrays against the glass of a Sub-Sea . All dead because they trusted a human in the water until another human came along that wanted to kill them for food or sport.

Mankind. The final death. We should be ashamed.

Humankind has not woven the web of life.

We are but one thread within it.

Whatever we do to the web, we do to ourselves.

All things are bound together. All things connect.

--Chief Seattle (Possibly not.)

July 18, 2004 - Happy Birthday to my Blog!

2009-08-07T06:23:00.000-07:00

Wow, five years of blogging was marked on July 18 of this year. Soul Knitting, as a blog, has been an interesting experience. I've learned so much about so many things computer and internet related. There have been days where I couldn't wait to share a story. Or times when I dared not spill my soul. And of course, it's given me a space to share my views on nature and stupid humans, bad food, great poetry and fantastic photography.

Having a space out on the wired world of the internet is an amazing experience. I have made friends online and then followed up in our non-virtual life. Additionally, I have connections to people I've never met. In places I will never get to see. But a part of me is there now. And a part of them is with me somehow. Very Schrodinger's Cat (Copenhagen interpretation.)

To all those that have followed me over the years, bless you. And to those just now finding me because of my 'Clapotis Spreadsheet' or 'dog killing, eating, and pictures of dead dogs hanging in a China market' posts, bless you too. (Many people find me thru those searches......the last one always leaves me perplexed.)

While I started this by writing about my knitting, SoulKnitting kind of turned into a fly-by shot of those parts of my life that I like to share. It has given me an amazing view of myself and the world in this process.

So here's to my blog's next ten years! Now with more dark chocolate and Luna pictures for your viewing enjoyment!

Morning Poem

2009-08-02T05:10:00.000-07:00

Morning Poem

Every morning
the world
is created.
Under the orange

sticks of the sun
the heaped
ashes of the night
turn into leaves again

and fasten themselves to the high branches ---
and the ponds appear
like black cloth
on which are painted islands

of summer lilies.
If it is your nature
to be happy
you will swim away along the soft trails

for hours, your imagination
alighting everywhere.
And if your spirit
carries within it

the thorn
that is heavier than lead ---
if it's all you can do
to keep on trudging ---

there is still
somewhere deep within you
a beast shouting that the earth
is exactly what it wanted ---

each pond with its blazing lilies
is a prayer heard and answered
lavishly,
every morning,

whether or not
you have ever dared to be happy,
whether or not
you have ever dared to pray.

~ Mary Oliver ~

(Dream Work)

Capital Reef Sunrise

2009-07-13T05:18:00.000-07:00

Wow. It's been years since I've been thru Zion, Bryce, and Capitol Reef National Parks. Still incredibly beautiful places. And I now have a new super duper camera.

Of course, that requires new software that I don't yet have to work with the images in a way that I want to. So for now, Picasa is still my best choice to get the photos to the blog. Here you go for now.

Luna and I

Sunrise at Capital Reef, Utah

Drove thru Zion, spent a day at Bryce and half a day at Capital Reef. All three were breathtaking. Just go.

"There are no words that can tell the hidden spirit of the wilderness, that can reveal its mystery, its melancholy, and its charm."

--Theodore Roosevelt

Of Being

2009-07-05T05:27:00.000-07:00

Of Being

I know this happiness
is provisional:

the looming presences—
great suffering, great fear—

withdraw only
into peripheral vision:

but ineluctable this shimmering
of wind in the blue leaves:

this flood of stillness
widening the lake of sky:

this need to dance,
this need to kneel:
this mystery:

~ Denise Levertov ~

(Selected Poems)

Coyotes

2009-06-28T05:13:00.000-07:00

Coyotes

Is this world truly fallen? They say no.
For there's the new moon, there's the Milky Way,
There's the rattler with a wren's egg in its mouth,
And there's the panting rabbit they will eat.
They sing their wild hymn on the dark slope,
Reading the stars like notes of hilarious music.
Is this a fallen world? How could it be?

And yet we're crying over the stars again,
And over the uncertainty of death,
Which we suspect will divide us all forever.
I'm tired of those who broadcast their certainties,
Constantly on their cell phones to their redeemer.
Is this a fallen world? For them it is.
But there's that starlit burst of animal laughter.

The day has sent its fires scattering.
The night has risen from its burning bed.
Our tears are proof that love is meant for life
And for the living. And this chorus of praise,
Which the pet dogs of the neighborhood are answering
Nostalgically, invites our answer, too.
Is this a fallen world? How could it be?

~ Mark Jarman ~

(The Atlantic, May 2003)

Sadly Gone

2009-06-26T05:27:00.000-07:00

How to Cope with Financial Stress and Anxiety

2009-06-25T05:49:00.000-07:00

5 Ways to Cope with Money Stress
By Nancy Palmer

Take Up Knitting!

According to research at the Harvard-affiliated Benson-Henry Institute for Mind Body Medicine, the repetitive motion and focus of needlework can elicit what's known as the relaxation response—a calming meditation-like state that slows heart rate and causes blood pressure to drop. In addition, a study published in the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society suggests that knitting is associated with a lower risk of dementia for those 65 and older.

Probably not LACE knitting......or maybe when knitting HEELS. I'm just saying.....

Simple Recipes' "Quesadilla Pie"

For fast-acting relief, try slowing down.

~Lily Tomlin

Eagle Cam

2009-06-22T05:44:00.000-07:00

Eagle Cam - NatureWatch will let you view a baby eagle RIGHT NOW sitting in its nest. Or one of its parents hovering over it. Cool.

Shifting the Sun

2009-06-21T06:00:00.000-07:00

Shifting the Sun

When your father dies, say the Irish,
you lose your umbrella against bad weather.
May his sun be your light, say the Armenians.

When your father dies, say the Welsh,
you sink a foot deeper into the earth.
May you inherit his light, say the Armenians.

When your father dies, say the Canadians,
you run out of excuses.
May you inherit his sun, say the Armenians.

When your father dies, say the French,
you become your own father.
May you stand up in his light, say the Armenians.

When you father dies, say the Indians,
he comes back as the thunder.
May you inherit his light, say the Armenians.

When your father dies, say the Russians,
he takes your childhood with him.
May you inherit his light, say the Armenians.

When your father dies, say the English,
you join his club you vowed you wouldn't.
May you inherit his sun, say the Armenians.

When your father dies, say the Armenians,
your sun shifts forever.
And you walk in his light

~ Diana Der-Hovanessian ~
(Selected Poems)

::In Loving Memory of my Dad::

Blessed Summer Solstice

2009-06-21T05:39:00.000-07:00

Photo: My "Mexican Bird of Pardise," front yard, 2009

Ahhhh, Summer Solstice. The longest day of the year featuring fire celebrations around the world. Enjoy the day and long twilight as the Earth then tilts towards the winter.

'School of the Seasons' by Waverly Fitzgerald has this to say about Summer Solstice:

"The summer solstice is the time when the sun is in its glory. This is the longest day of the year and the shortest night. The date of the summer solstice varies slightly from year to year. This year it falls on June 21st. Summer solstice customs are also associated with a fixed date: June 24 the Midsummer’s Day. June 23rd is Midsummer’s Eve.

As the name “Midsummer” indicates, this is considered the height of the summer. Yet there is an undertone of darkness in the light. While we celebrate the power of the sun, we also note its decline. From now on the hours of sunlight will decrease.

The Fire and the Sun:
The great solar festival of the year is celebrated from North Africa to Scandinavia with fire. This is a traditional time for a bonfire which is lit as the sun sets. People dance around the fire clockwise and carry lit torches. In some places, they set fire to wheels of hay which are rolled downhill.

Flowers and May Day wreaths are tossed into the fire. They burn and die just as the heat of the summer consumes the spring and brings us closer to the decline of autumn and the death of vegetation in winter. As we begin the decline, it’s important to remember that the wheel of the year is a circle. The spring will come again. The sun will triumph over the darkness again. Thus, the circle is an important symbol. Wreaths are hung on doors. People gaze at the fire through wreaths and wear necklaces of golden flowers.

Before the calendar was changed in the 18th century, Midsummer fell on 4th of July. When you celebrate Fourth of July, think of all those brilliant fireworks and blazing Catherine wheels as devotions in honor of the sun.

St John and Honeymoons:
Midsummer’s Eve is also called St John’s Eve. The official version says that St John was assigned this feast because he was born six months before Christ (who gets the other great solar festival, the winter solstice). Actually it may have more to do with the story of St John losing his head to Salome. In ancient times, a ritual sacrifice was made to the goddess of midsummer.

Other midsummer symbols also accumulate around St John. He's the patron of shepherds and beekeepers. This is a time to acknowledge those wild things which man culls but cannot tame, like the sheep and bees. The full moon which occurs in June is sometimes called the Mead Moon. The hives are full of honey. In ancient times, the honey was fermented and made into mead. According to Pauline Campanelli in The Wheel of the Year, this is the derivation of honeymoon.

This is a traditional time for honoring water, perhaps because it plays such a vital role in maintaining life while the sun is blazing overhead. Several of the goddesses worshipped at midsummer — Matuta, Anahita and Kupala — are associated with moisture and dampness. St John baptized with water while Christ baptizes with fire and the Holy Spirit. In Mexico, St John presides over all waters. People dress wells and fountains with flowers, candles and paper festoons. They go out and bathe at midnight in the nearest body of water. In the city, they celebrate at the bathhouse or pool with diving and swimming contests.

Herbs and Lovers:
Midsummer Eve is also known as Herb Evening. This is the most potent night (and midnight the most potent time) for gathering magical herbs, particularly St John’s wort, vervain, mugwort, mistletoe, ivy and fern seed. In some legends, a special plant, which is guarded by demons, flowers only on this one night a year. Successfully picking it gives one magical powers, like being able to understand the language of the trees.

This is also a time for lovers. An old Swedish proverb says “Midsummer Night is not long but it sets many cradles rocking.” According to Dorothy Gladys Spicer in The Book of Festivals, Irish girls drop melted lead into water and interpret the shapes it makes. In Spain, girls do the same with eggs. In Poland, they combine three of the symbols of the holiday for a divination. Girls make a wreath of wild flowers, put a candle in the middle, set it adrift on the river and tell the future by observing its fate.

Celebrating:
This is a great festival to celebrate outdoors. Go camping. Go out into the woods or up into the mountains or down to the beach. Find some place where you can build a bonfire and light it when the sun sets. Bring along plenty of flowers (especially roses or yellow flowers like calendulas, St John’s wort, or marigolds). Fashion them into wreaths, wear them as you dance around the fire and throw them into the fire at the end of the night. Bring along sparklers too (but use them carefully). Indoors, use whatever symbols represent light and warmth to you: golden discs, sunflowers, shiny metal trays, chili pepper lights.

Gather magical and healing herbs at night on June 23. Hang St John’s wort over your doors and windows for protection; toss some on the fire as well. Harvest your garden herbs now so they will be extra potent.

To acknowledge the gift of water in your everyday life, decorate the faucets in your house. Z Budapest in The Grandmother of Time suggests walking to the nearest body of water, making a wish and then throwing in a rose you have kissed to carry your wish home. She provides the following wishing poem:

Yes, you are here in the soft buzzing grass.
Yes, you are listening among the flowering gardens.
Yes, you are shining from the most royal blue sky.
Yes, you are granting me what I wish tonight.
Grant me a healthy life rich with high purpose,
A true partner to share my joys and my tears,
Wisdom to hear your voice giving me guidance,
Wealth to give to others as you have given to me.

Honoring Your Strength:
The sun is associated with will, vitality, accomplishment, victory and fame. As you throw your flowers into the fire, acknowledge your accomplishments. Write about these at length in your journal, perhaps while sipping a cup of tea sweetened with honey, or gather your friends in a circle and go around several times with each person boasting about their strengths. Assign a different topic for each round, for instance, aspirations, courage, achievement, competence. Toast each other (with mead, if you can find it). This is your night to shine."

M*M and B*B to those in nature celebrations.

"Whatever is dreamed on this night, will come to pass."

--William Shakespeare - On the Summer Solstice acknowledging the magic of this time

of Mid-Summernight's Dream

Cat Funny

2009-06-19T05:07:00.000-07:00

Photo: ICanHasCheeseBurger.com

Heh. Swiped from Linda at RVVagabonds! What a great giggle.

Simply Recipes' "Circassian Chicken

"Nothing shows a man's character more than what he laughs at."

So Sad: Blue Whale -- One Dead, R.I.P.

2009-06-15T05:12:00.000-07:00

Photo: Flip Nicklin/Minden Pictures

"Pictured: The largest animal ever to have lived - tragically run down by a passing ship Mail Online"

Researchers believe the whale may have been hit by a cargo ship in the busy shipping lanes coming out of the city of Los Angeles. Staff at the university have not yet been reached for comment. The picture first appeared on National Geographic's website.

Water is churned up around the body of the whale as the research vessel fights to get closer to it, while seagulls perch on its upturned belly.

The Pacific Storm is 84 feet, or just over 25 metres long - meaning this whale must be roughly 22 metres long.

The image is so astonishing it almost looks unreal. The Oregon State University's Marine Mammal Institute is well-known for its research on blue whales, even participating in a documentary with National Geographic on the subject.

Blue whales are the largest animal ever to have lived - even larger than the dinosaurs. They are a sub-species of baleen whale, feeding mainly on krill, that can grow to up to 30 metres long, and weigh 100-150tonnes. Their mouths could hold up to 100 people, and their hearts are the size of a small car.

They are long-lived, also, with an average lifespan of 110 years. The blue whale is also one of the largest animals in the sea, capable of making noises as loud as a jet engine - though at frequencies too low for a human being to hear.

The majestic creatures live in all oceans of the world, though they are predominantly found in the North Atlantic, the North Pacific, and just above Antarctica. By the 1960s they were classified as being on the brink of extinction, and they are still on the endangered list - making the tragic loss of this one all the more poignant.

Whale deaths always upset me. Whether by nature or man, there just aren't enough of them left. Poor whale. Poor us.

"The real threat to whales is whaling, which has endangered many whale species."

-Dave Barry

The Worst Drive-Through Foods in America

2009-06-02T05:08:00.000-07:00

Wow....is this bad or what????

THE WORST DRIVE-THROUGH MEAL IN AMERICA:

Carl’s Jr. Double Six Dollar Burger with Medium Natural Cut Fries and 32 oz Coke

2,618 calories 144 g fat (51.5 g saturated fat) 2,892 mg sodium

Of all the gut-growing, heart-stopping, life-threatening burgers in the fast food world, there is none whose damage to your general well-being is as catastrophic as this. Consider these heart-stopping comparisons: This meal has the caloric equivalent of 13 Krispy Kreme Original Glazed Donuts; the saturated fat equivalent of 52 strips of bacon; and the salt equivalent of seven and a half large orders of McDonald’s French fries!

And I guess I'll have to give up the occasional summer 'shake' at McDonald's. Look at this:

WORST MILKSHAKE

McDonald's Large Triple Thick Chocolate Milkshake

1,160 calories 27 g fat (16 g saturated fat) 168 g sugar 510 mg sodium

You’d be better off eating two Quarter Pounders than sucking down one of these belt-breaking shakes. Steer clear of milkshakes at the Golden Arches. If you must have a frozen dessert, order a vanilla ice cream cone to save more than 1,000 calories.

What a bunch of food crap. I think it may be safer to eat a half a pint of ice cream where I could at least READ the label.

Simply Recipes' "Jamaican Jerk Burgers"

Pick battles big enough to matter, small enough to win.

~Jonathan Kozel

Ashes & Snow

2009-05-26T05:24:00.000-07:00

Every time I see this picture I actually feel something like pain or love or desire. Feelings that seem to explode from my chest. From deep inside. A physical feeling. A heaviness. Sometimes it makes me want to cry....from love or sadness....sometimes both it seems.

This is one of my most favorite pictures. It's from "Ashes & Snow" by Gregory Colbert. How I missed his exhibition in Santa Monica a few years ago I don't know. How I found this picture? It was and still is hanging on a cupboard in Helen's house. I gasped the first time I saw it. And I've never let it out of my mind.

I recently found the online exhibition. You should first get a cup of tea or coffee and plan on a few quiet minutes of going thru. It's incredible.

TSA Has Your Junk Out Front

2009-05-20T05:10:00.000-07:00

Airport security bares all, or does it? - CNN.com

I hate airports anymore. A few weeks ago I flew up to Washington state to visit Charlotte and Lobo. I didn't have to go through one of these scanners which I'm really glad about. First off, it's a HUGE invasion of privacy. HELLO 1984!!!!!!!! And it's not that I think anything under my clothes is something that hasn't been seen before...as it were. I just think this is a joke. I get on planes with pencils, pens, and knitting needles. All lethal weapons if you know how to use them. So are socks and tennis balls. This is just smoke and mirrors to make the American traveling public FEEL like our government is protecting them to the tune of big bucks.

When are we all going to have to wear 'traveling jumpsuits' issued by the government and donned at the airport? 2015 betcha.

In Loving Memory, Lobo the Great

2009-05-12T10:18:00.000-07:00

Lobo passed away today. He was my Best Friend Charlotte's wolf dog. He was such a great animal. Always gentle and kind.

WOOT!! Central Station Antwerpen Dance!!!!

2009-05-07T05:07:00.000-07:00

Don't know much about this video, but if it is 'civil disobedience,' it is the action in the highest order!!! I LOVE THIS!!!! Wait till the blog music stops to start the video. About two minutes!!!

Fraggle Rock

2009-05-06T05:43:00.000-07:00

I think this increases the 'cute' factor on my blog by about 1000%! Hehhe. You can wait 2 minutes until the blog music stops and then play to hear the 'knitting' song sung perfectly! Or start it right away and then play it again, many, many times.

Starburst Crop Circle

2009-05-04T05:10:00.000-07:00

The Starburst is 298 feet in length.

Interwoven and layered

Hmmmm. Not as spectacular as ....

But a good beginning to a new season. Visit the 'Crop Circle Connector' for more info.

The Journey

2009-05-03T05:05:00.000-07:00

The Journey

Above the mountains
the geese turn into
the light again

Painting their
black silhouettes
on an open sky.

Sometimes everything
has to be
inscribed across
the heavens

so you can find
the one line
already written
inside you.

Sometimes it takes
a great sky
to find that

small, bright
and indescribable
wedge of freedom
in your own heart.

Sometimes with
the bones of the black
sticks left when the fire
has gone out

someone has written
something new
in the ashes of your life.

You are not leaving
you are arriving.

~ David Whyte ~

(House of Belonging)

Vesak

2009-05-02T05:17:00.000-07:00

I visited India in 2001. I LOVED India and would go back in a minute. I took the above picture of Buddha lying down in one of the many temple caves in Ajanta, near Aurangabad, India. This Buddha is probably 20 feet long. Incredible. And he has the most beautiful feet. Ajanta was magical. It features huge temples carved right into the mountainside. I loved all of India. But these sacred temples were one of my most favorite spots while traveling there. I only wish I had had a better camera. LOVED India. I also spent time in the caves at Ellora.

Significance of Vesak - Buddha Day
The significance of Vesak lies with the Buddha and his universal peace message to mankind.

As we recall the Buddha and his Enlightenment, we are immediately reminded of the unique and most profound knowledge and insight which arose in him on the night of his Enlightenment. This coincided with three important events which took place, corresponding to the three watches or periods of the night. Click to read more.

Happy Buddha Day!

The mind is everything. What you think you become.

--Buddha

Swine Flu Symptoms

2009-05-01T05:54:00.000-07:00

Here you go. Doesn't seem any different than 'regular' flu that kills 36,000 a year. But it might be.....thousands more south of the border seem to have it in May instead of during the winter.

Concerning the vaccine, I've been told NOT to take it if it comes out, as the virus will mutate within two weeks to a different type than what I just got a vaccine for -- so what's the point. I wouldn't get the vaccine anyway. But if that's true, then the vaccine is just another government 'feel good' program while doing nothing in the face of a rapidly spreading reality. Of course, I may be talking out of my ass.

Or not.

Simply Recipes' "Mom's Cold-Season Chicken Soup"

"A good plan executed now, is better than a perfect plan next week."

- Gen. George S. Patton, Jr.

16 Months After The First Start Up...

2009-04-30T05:29:00.000-07:00

Toe up, magic loop, two at a time, short-row YO heel. Damn. At last. Success.

Or almost. Still not done and on the feet! Anything WRONG could still happen you know.

Simply Recipes' "Chicken with Mango Chutney Sauce"

Fall down seven times. Stand up eight.

–Japanese proverb

Charlie Rose - A discussion about Swine Flu

2009-04-28T05:11:00.000-07:00

Excellent 6-minute video on what we may be facing if the Swine Flue goes pandemic. It is also interesting that these experts estimated that the number of people in Mexico infected is in the thousands....or hundreds of thousands already.

That Mr. Tuttles (Again)

2009-04-27T05:15:00.000-07:00

Mr. Tuttles. Just saying his name is fun. He always makes me smile when I see him out in the back yard somewhere. Luna must feel the same way because she starts 'singing' to him when she sees him. She has a perfect howling tune that she serenades to us both.

You'd never think a desert tortoise could be so engaging. But Mr. Tuttles is. I miss him in the winter when he is hibernating. And I worry about him when I don't see out and about for a few days in the summer.

I just love that Mr. Tuttles.

My mind Was A Mirror

2009-04-26T05:47:00.000-07:00

My mind was a mirror:
It saw what it saw, it knew what it knew.
In youth my mind was just a mirror
In a rapidly flying car,
Which catches and loses bits of the landscape.
Then in time
Great scratches were made on the mirror,
Letting the outside world come in,
And letting my inner self look out.
For this is the birth of the soul in sorrow,
A birth with gains and losses.
The mind sees the world as a thing apart,
And the soul makes the world at one with itself.
A mirror scratched reflects no image —
And this is the silence of wisdom.

~ Ernest Hyde ~

(Spoon River Anthology)

Earth's Day

2009-04-22T09:18:00.000-07:00

And forget not that the earth delights to feel your bare feet and the winds long to play with your hair.
- Kahlil Gibran, "The Prophet"

Payless Shoes: Fake Green "zoe & zac"

2009-04-20T05:52:00.000-07:00

Payless Shoes is trying to convince us that their "zoe & zac" shoe line is 'fresh green fashion.' I'm calling bullshit on this. While these shoes may have recycled rubber and organic cotton in their production, the basic principal is a marketing scam.

Why you ask? Because the shoes are produced in China! So all those 'green' components are thrown out the window by the transporting and energy used to move these shoes across the globe from one side of the world to the other.

How much fuel does that take? I'm thinking more than being able to be labeled 'green' is logical. Oh, but the marketing is nice.

NPR did a story on Payless Shoes and how this is another green scam. And while it might seem like a nice green transitional product, Payless Shoes could have at least brought forth the production and transportation information to be clear on all the so-called 'green' facts. No mention of where the components are sourced, location of production, or method of shipping is mentioned.

We are idiots.

Simply Recipes' "Asparagus Pesto with Pasta"

Man has been endowed with reason, with the power to create, so that he can add to what he's been given.

But up to now he hasn't been a creator, only a destroyer. Forests keep disappearing, rivers dry up, wild life's become extinct, the climate's ruined and the land grows poorer and uglier every day.
--Anton Chekhov, "Uncle Vanya, 1897"

THAT LIVES IN US

2009-04-19T05:05:00.000-07:00

THAT LIVES IN US

If you put your hands on this oar with me,
they will never harm another, and they will come to find
they hold everything you want.

If you put your hands on this oar with me, they would no longer
lift anything to your
mouth that might wound your precious land –
that sacred earth that is your body.

If you put your soul against this oar with me,
the power that made the universe will enter your sinew
from a source not outside your limbs, but from a holy realm
that lives in us.

Exuberant is existence, time a husk.
When the moment cracks open, ecstasy leaps out and devours space;
love goes mad with the blessings, like my words give.

Why lay yourself on the torturer’s rack of the past and the future?
The mind that tries to shape tomorrow beyond its capacities
will find no rest.

Be kind to yourself, dear – to our innocent follies.
Forget any sounds or touch you knew that did not help you dance.
You will come to see that all evolves us.

~ Rumi ~

(Love Poems From God: Twelve Sacred Voices from the East and West by Daniel Ladinsky)

When you said that you got us 'box seats', this isn't what I had in mind.

2009-04-17T05:10:00.000-07:00

More from the Desert Botanical Gardens & Chihuly

2009-04-16T05:28:00.000-07:00

I always love visiting the Desert Botanical Garden in Phoenix, AZ. During the April, the deserts of AZ are in bloom and that includes so many things at the gardens. Chihuly's glass interpretations of a desert's splendour were just icing on the cake.

And while Chihuly's exhibits are incredible, still, my most favorite thing in the DBG is the 'Elephant Tree' also known as Bursera microphylla. I've been fortunate enough to even see them in the wild. I love these old wisdom trees. I even finally purchased one at right there at the DBG last year. Lovely!

I was amazed that this hanging piece didn't move in the 30 mph winds that were whipping about as we passed thru the gardens.

Wow. This one is huge! Stunning. This one might be my favorite.

Or maybe this one is my favorite.

I also love this one.

And again...fabulous.

A few even light up!

The whole garden, with or without Chihuly, is grand. Chihuly's exhibit goes on thru May 31, 2009. The DBG is open year round. They are even open late in the evening and have jazz on Friday nights. How fun!!! Some year, I'm going to get there for the holiday luminaries display. How cool must that be?

Today, my Nevada desert is cold. It's not even in the 50's yet. Our high yesterday was 58*. Next week, we'll be in the 90*'s. :::sigh::: The heat is almost here. All hot or all cold. :::sigh:::

Simply Recipes' "Potato and Leek Soup"

A man has made at least a start on discovering the meaning of human life

when he plants shade trees under which he knows full well he will never sit.

--D. Elton Trueblood

Study: Biofuel threatens water supplies

2009-04-13T05:34:00.000-07:00

Per LiveScience at MSNBC.COM

In some places, a "gallon of ethanol may require up to more than 2,100 gallons of water." Yea, THAT'S a great exchange for a GALLON of biofuel.

We are stupid.

Knitting Keeps The Brain Young

2009-04-10T05:22:00.000-07:00

I knew that :-).

More Desert Glass

2009-04-09T05:02:00.000-07:00

More from the Desert Botanical Gardens in Phoenix, AZ.

More Chihuly At DBG

2009-04-08T05:53:00.000-07:00

Flames of glass

A rose among thorns -- Helen

The Cactus Gardens

Pink Madonnas among the cactus

The Desert Goes Glass

2009-04-07T05:15:00.000-07:00

Friday morning was spent in the desert north of Phoenix hunting 'Desert Lavender' (Hyptis emoryi). The day was clear even while being buffeted by our forever blowing desert Spring winds.

Not a drop of rain in sight.

But some unusual glass showed up!

Chihuly is on exhibit at the Desert Botanical Gardens in Phoenix, Arizona.

Wow. Very interesting juxposition. I really thought it was neat. And the DBG has reworked many of the natural exhibits making the desert even MORE breathtaking! I loved it. I'll show more pictures over the coming week.

The Chihuly Exhibit runs through May 31st, 2009. Go if you can!

The desert is a natural extension of the inner silence of the body. If humanity’s language, technology, and buildings are an extension of its constructive faculties, the desert alone is an extension of its capacity for absence, the ideal schema of humanity’s disappearance.
--Jean Baudrillard

Houston, We Have A Short Row Heel!!!

2009-04-01T05:58:00.000-07:00

I can NOT thank Mt.Mom enough for putting up these videos of how to do Short Row Heels.

Short Row Heels with YO, Part 1

Short Row Heels with YO, Part 2

Short Row Heels with YO, Part 3

For over a year (!!!!!!!!!!) I've been trying to learn how to do Short Row Heels (SRH)with the 'wrap & turn' method. It sucks. Or it just sucks when I'm trying to learn how to do it. I found Mt.Mom's videos showing how to do SRH's with YO's instead of wraps. Thought I'd give THAT a try. Plus, she took the time to do 3 video's showing how to start, do the heel, THEN get the last stitches BACK on the instep needle! This is HUGE people.

LOOK!!!

EKKKKKKK!!! SQUUUEEEEEEEE!!! A COMPLETED HEEL!!!

I bow down at Mt.Mom's feet. Thank you, thank you, thank you.

Magic

2009-03-29T05:59:00.000-07:00

Magic

We were talking about magic
as we drove along a crowded
Sunday highway

when the whirl of wings
made me turn
and a flock of geese
flew over our car
so low I could see
their feet tucked under them.

For a moment the rustle
of their presence over our heads
obscured everything

and as they disappeared
you said,
"I see what you mean."

~ Jenifer Nostrand ~

(Bless the Day, edited by June Cotner)

Fireland | The Sexiest Sentence Alive

2009-03-28T13:32:00.000-07:00

So far...this one made me say, "Wow," out loud. What's your choice?

"This sentence is wearing high heels with straps on them and the pale hollow between its shoulder blades vanishes into a black dress."

Hand & Glove

2009-03-27T05:27:00.000-07:00

Leather Gloves for Fun, Fashion and Function, Italian Leather Gloves, Gloves, Driving gloves, wedding, gloves, Lace gloves! And more!

One of my best friends, Sherri, opened a 'glove' store, Hand & Glove, in Breckenridge, CO, a few months ago. Wow!! What great gloves!

I've already got a number of pairs for winter and will now pick up a few pairs for summer. I'm looking at these for driving and/or sailing:

Ladies Vented Summer Glove (Garden Section)

And I LOVE this gardening set, both the gloves and the gardening apron:

Both the gloves and apron feel like butter. I can't tell you how soft they are. Fabulous! I'm thinking of using the apron in the house for my cell phone and timer instead of out in the yard. It's just too nice to get dirty I think. So pretty. And I'm NOT a 'little flower' person, but damn, I just love this set.

The men's wool gloves are equally great if your honey is in cold or snow bound weather.

Check out her site to order online at http://www.handandglove.com/. Enjoy!

I Just Need A Bigger Bag

2009-03-25T05:40:00.000-07:00

ROTFLMAO!! This really made me laugh....then miss my cat. :::pout:::

Simply Recipes' "Chocolate Truffles"

If you hold a cat by the tail you learn things you cannot learn any other way.
--Mark Twain

This Makes Me Want A Guinness

2009-03-22T17:08:00.000-07:00

The Radiant

2009-03-22T05:21:00.000-07:00

The Radiant

In night,
at the dark limits of earth
where land ends and water begins,
at the elemental border
where you can go no further
without one entering the other,
the green light goes on.
It's not the man who fishes here,
not the light of human making
because we are the ones who measure light
and because light was created before us
from blood of flesh and sea
like this animal light of the manta ray
traveling the latitudes of night
and longitudes of darkness
knowing the blue unfathomable shifts
and dark ranges of the world beneath water.

It travels a rich sea away from us,
its light falling on plankton,
bringing food and fish toward it,
as if it is moonlight
opening across water,
it passes over the fished-out places
beyond the reef where coral is dying,
out past the point where the British captain was killed
by those who first thought he was a shining god.

It moves steadily out into darkness
to where the colder darkness begins to well up
from the sea depths that have no bottom,
the place where I have feared the pale face of a shark
with its deadly touch
against my naked legs.

The ray travels over the many
other lives that have light
and below them is the blindness
of fish who need no sight,
and out toward the place where sun left the sky,
to where the larger creatures live,
where fishermen once found their boat cast in shadow
and looking up, saw what kind of cloud it was,
the manta ray risen out of water, a leap
so large it darkened the sky.
The men returned haunted by
everything that was larger than they were,
more beautiful and bearing its own light.

Tonight on this dark shore,
watching the animal light go over the horizon,
I long to be in water heading for open sea,
for no other power,
no other light.

~ Linda Hogan ~

(Rounding the Human Corners)

I Tried Being Reasonable..........

2009-03-21T06:08:00.000-07:00

via 'I Can Has Cheezburger.com'

heheheeeeeeeee.....

Spring Invocation to Persephone

2009-03-20T05:24:00.000-07:00

"Persephone and Demeter" by Susan Seddon Boulet

Spring Invocation to Persephone

Come, Persephone,
With your paint-pots and brushes:
Stipple the fields with flowers,
Dot the branches with bright blossoms,
Streak the Spring sky with pale pastels.
You are the one who paints the eyes on the pansies,
And the lines on the lilies so the bees can find their food,
And the blushes on the rosebuds.
Without you,
The bearded iris would have no smile
And the black-eyed susan would be blind.
Come, Persephone:
The world has rested too long
Under Winter's snowy cloak.
Come bring your brushes and bright colors
And dress us in the shades of Spring again.
We invoke you, gracious maiden of freedom and beauty:
Join us now.

-- Elizabeth Barrette

30 Fabulous Freebies!

2009-03-18T05:55:00.000-07:00

Here's a great list of 30 Fabulous Freebies to incorporate into your life. The FREE college savings through Upromise.com sounds great.....I'm sending that link directly to my friends with kids!

On the home front, it's spring time in the desert here. Beautiful days of 75*....with NO wind....yet. That will be showing up soon for sure. For right now, heaven is outside.

Simply Recipes' "Fettuccine with Creamy Tomato Italian Sausage Sauce"

And Spring arose on the garden fair,

Like the Spirit of Love felt everywhere;

And each flower and herb on Earth's dark breast

rose from the dreams of its wintry rest.

~Percy Bysshe Shelley, "The Sensitive Plant"

The Moment

2009-03-15T05:18:00.000-07:00

The Moment

The moment when, after many years
of hard work and a long voyage
you stand in the centre of your room,
house, half-acre, square mile, island, country,
knowing at last how you got there,
and say, I own this,

is the same moment when the trees unloose
their soft arms from around you,
the birds take back their language,
the cliffs fissure and collapse,
the air moves back from you like a wave
and you can't breathe.

No, they whisper. You own nothing.
You were a visitor, time after time
climbing the hill, planting the flag, proclaiming.
We never belonged to you.
You never found us.
It was always the other way round.

~ Margaret Atwood ~

(morning in the burned house)

Time to Buy Forever Stamps

2009-03-13T05:16:00.000-07:00

The US Postal Service is raising the price of first class stamps by 2 cents on May 11th, taking them from 42 cents to 44 cents.You may want to consider stocking up on some forever stamps which are always honored for 1-ounce letters with no need for additional postage. The price increase is 4.8%.

By buying forever stamps now you are saving 4.8% which is almost double what you can earn in a savings account. Thus it makes financial sense to stock up on some forever stamps.

Simply Recipes' "Fettuccine with Creamy Tomato Italian Sausage Sauce"

Let your love be like the misty rains, coming softly, but flooding the river.

~Malagasy Proverb

Be A Tea Lover!

2009-03-11T05:40:00.000-07:00

Surprising Signs You'll Probably Live Longer Than You Think

Sign: You're a tea lover

Both green and black teas contain a concentrated dose of catechins, substances that help blood vessels relax and protect your heart. In a study of more than 40,500 Japanese men and women, those who drank five or more cups of green tea every day had the lowest risk of dying from heart disease and stroke. Other studies involving black tea showed similar results.

You really need only one or two cups of tea daily to start doing your heart some good—just make sure it's a fresh brew. Ready-to-drink teas (the kind you find in the supermarket beverage section) don't offer the same health benefits. "Once water is added to tea leaves, their catechins degrade within a few days," says Jeffrey Blumberg, Ph.D., a professor of nutrition science and policy at Tufts University. Also, some studies show that adding milk may eliminate tea's protective effects on the cardiovascular system, so stick to just lemon or honey.

The Meaning Of Life

2009-03-01T05:33:00.000-08:00

The meaning of life is to see.

~ Hui Neng

Fat Tuesday Is Here!

2009-02-24T14:35:00.000-08:00

Kick it New Orleans!

Parade Cams!

Simply Recipes' "Becca's Jambalaya" and the Kansas City Star's "New Orleans gumbo is savory taste of Mardi Gras"

"The night cometh in which we take no note of time, and forget that we are living in a practical age which relegates romance to printed pages and merriment to the stage. Yet what is more romantic than the Night of the Masked Ball—the too brief hours of light, music, and fantastic merriment which seem to belong to no age and yet to all? Somehow or other, in spite of all the noisy frolic of such nights, the spectacle of a Mardi Gras Ball impresses one at moments as a ghastly and unreal scene. The apparitions of figures which belong to other ages; the Venetian mysteries of the domino; the witcheries of beauty half-veiled; the tantalizing salutes from enigmatic figures you cannot recognize; the pretty mockeries whispered into your ear by some ruddy lips whose syllabling seems so strangely familiar and yet defies recognition; the King himself seated above the shifting rout impenetrable as a Sphinx; and the kaleidoscopic changing and flashing of colors as the merry crowd whirls and sways under the musical breath of the orchestra—seem hardly real, hardly possible to belong in any manner to the prosaic life of the century. Even the few impassioned spectators who remain maskless and motionless form so strange a contrast that they seem like watchers in a haunted palace silently gazing upon a shadowy festival which occurs only once a year in the great hall exactly between the hours of twelve and three. While the most beautiful class of costumes seem ghostly only in that they really belong to past ages, the more grotesque and outlandish sort seem strangely suggestive of a goblin festival. Andabove all the charms of the domino! Does it not seem magical that a woman can, by a little bright velvet and shimmering silk, thus make herself into a fairy? And the glorious Night is approaching—this quaint, old-time night, star-jeweled, fantastically robed; and the blue river is bearing us fleets of white boats thronged with strangers who doubtless are dreaming of lights and music, the tepid, perfumed air of Rex's palace, and the motley route of merry ghosts, droll goblins, and sweet fairies, who will dance the dance of Carnival until blue day puts out at once the trembling tapers of the stars and the lights of the great ball."
--The Dawn of the Carnival
(The New Orleans Item, February 2, 1880), by Lafcadio Hearn

The Night House

2009-02-22T05:17:00.000-08:00

The Night House

Every day the body works in the fields of the world
mending a stone wall
or swinging a sickle through the tall grass --
the grass of civics, the grass of money --
and every night the body curls around itself
and listens for the soft bells of sleep.

But the heart is restless and rises
from the body in the middle of the night,
and leaves the trapezoidal bedroom
with its thick, pictureless walls
to sit by herself at the kitchen table
and heat some milk in a pan.

And the mind gets up too, puts on a robe
and goes downstairs, lights a cigarette,
and opens a book on engineering.
Even the conscience awakens
and roams from room to room in the dark,
darting away from every mirror like a strange fish.

And the soul is up on the roof
in her nightdress, straddling the ridge,
singing a song about the wildness of the sea
until the first rip of pink appears in the sky.
Then, they all will return to the sleeping body
the way a flock of birds settles back into a tree,

resuming their daily colloquy,
talking to each other or themselves
even through the heat of the long afternoons.
Which is why the body -- that house of voices --
sometimes puts down its metal tongs, its needle, or its pen
to stare into the distance,

to listen to all its names being called
before bending again to its labor.

~ Billy Collins ~

(Sailing Around the Room)

Michael Roland Shaw Moore

2009-02-21T05:45:00.000-08:00

Michael Roland Shaw Moore

January 9, 1941 - February 20, 2009

Husband, father, grandfather, great-grandfather, friend, teacher, musician, herbalist. Founder, Southwest School of Botanical Medicine

THE DYING PANTHEIST TO THE PRIEST

Take your ivory Christ away:
No dying god shall have my knee,
While live gods breathe in this wild wind
And shout from yonder dashing sea.

When March brings back the Adonis flower
No more the white processions meet,
With incense to the risen lord,
About the pillared temple s feet.

From tusk of boar, from thrust of spear
The dead rise not. At Eastertide
The same sun dances on their graves
Love's darling and the Crucified.

Yet still the year s returning tide
Flows greenly round each ruined plinth,
Breaking on fallen shafts in foam
Of crocus and of hyacinth:

Tossing a spray of swallows high,
To flutter lightly on the breeze
And fleck with tiny spots of shade
The sunshine on the broken frieze.

I know the gray-green asphodels
Still sheet the dim Elysian mead,
And ever by dark Lethe's wells
The poppy sheds her ghostly seed.

And once O once! when sunset lay
Blood-red across the winter sea,
Where on the sands we drained our flasks
And danced and cried our Evoet

Among the tossing cakes of ice
And spouting of the frozen spray,
We saw their white limbs twist and whirl
The ancient sea-gods at their play.

The gold-brown liquor burned my heart,
The icy tempest stung my brow:
The twanging of Apollo's lyre
I heard it as I hear it now.

O no, the old gods are not dead :
I think that they will never die;
But I, who lie upon this bed
In mortal anguish what am I?

A wave that rises with a breath
Above the infinite watery plain,
To foam and sparkle in the sun
A moment ere it sink again.

The eternal undulation runs:
A man, I die: perchance to be,
Next life, a white-throat on the wind,
A daffodil on Tempe's lea.

They lied who said that Pan was dead:
Life was, life is, and life shall be.
So take away your crucifix
The everliving gods for me!

Henry A. Beers

I LOVE Sea Shepard!!

2009-02-11T05:36:00.000-08:00

Protesters', whalers' ships collide - World environment- msnbc.com

Visit SeaShepherd.com. Like anybody in this day and age needs to be eating whale meat unless they're living on the ice. Read the letter from the Dali Lama to SeaShepherd.

This is our purpose: to make as meaningful as possible this life that has been bestowed upon us; to live in such a way that we may be proud of ourselves; to act in such a way that some part of us lives on.
--Oswald Spengler

PyramidCam Live!

2009-02-03T05:25:00.000-08:00

The Pyramids at Giza - PyramidCam Live!

How fun is this?

Move Over Aretha

2009-02-02T06:02:00.000-08:00

Yup, just move on over. Jennifer Hudson......FANTASTIC performance of the "Star Spangled Banner."

Watch here.

Skinning Your Knees on God

2009-02-01T05:39:00.000-08:00

Skinning Your Knees on God

Little by little,
You will turn into stars.

Even then, my dear,
You will only be
A crawling infant,
Still skinning your knees on God.

Little by little,
You will turn into
The whole sweet, amorous Universe
In heat
On a wild spring night,

And become so free
In a wonderful, secret
And pour Love
That flows
From a conscious,
One-pointed
Infinite need for Light.

Even then, my dear,
The Beloved will have fulfilled
Just a fraction,
Just a fraction!
Of a promise
He wrote upon your heart.

When your soul begins
To Ever bloom and laugh
And spin in Eternal Ecstasy -

O little by little,
You will turn into God.

("I Heard God Laughing - Renderings of Hafiz" by Daniel Ladinsky)

11 Great Hidden Things Google Can Do That You Should Know

2009-01-31T05:50:00.000-08:00

Thanks to Linda over at RVVagabonds for 11 Great Hidden Things Google Can Do That You Should Know! Very cool.

Sedona

2009-01-29T05:32:00.000-08:00

Coffee Pot Sunset

Sunset

Sunrise

Away Morning

Coffee Pot Sunrise

Lunch

Patio View

"I can drive the shit out of this car you know," says Luna.

The universe is full of magical things,patiently waiting for our wits to grow sharper.
‑Eden Phillpotts

No, no, there is no going back.

2009-01-25T05:12:00.000-08:00

No, no, there is no going back.
Less and less you are
that possibility you were.
More and more you have become
those lives and deaths
that have belonged to you.
You have become a sort of grave
containing much that was
and is no more in time, beloved
then, now, and always.
And so you have become a sort of tree
standing over a grave.
Now more than ever you can be
generous toward each day
that comes, young, to disappear
forever, and yet remain
unaging in the mind.
Every day you have less reason
not to give yourself away.

~ Wendell Berry ~

(Collected Poems)

China translation cuts parts of Obama speech

2009-01-21T05:40:00.000-08:00

China is a communist dictatorship. Why are we surprised concerning ANY of their actions? And why are we so stupid to give them any of our money by way of during business with them? Oh, that's right. THEY own US now. Wal-Mart shoppers, just keep on keeping on.

Do NOT buy anything made in China. Period.

Simply Recipes' "Crab Fondue"

“Communism is the death of the soul. It is the organization of total conformity - in short, of tyranny - and it is committed to making tyranny universal.”
--Adlai E. Stevenson

The Election of an American President

2009-01-20T19:47:00.000-08:00

While I've always been proud to be an American, today I'm even quite emotional about it. Whether or not you voted for Obama, today is evidence that the American Spirit of faith in ourselves is still alive. Hope for a better tomorrow is still alive. And we finally will let all Americans rise or fall to equal self-made ability.

We must always change, renew, rejuvenate ourselves, otherwise we harden.
-- Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe