Changing Places

Woot!

Had one of those lovely “Christian” women with the stupid ribbon magnets on her car decide I had cut her off pulling out of the grocery store parking lot and decide to zip past me in the same lane. Fortunately, I saw her coming and stayed over enough for her to get by. Why is it always these assholes who are the most inconsiderate people on the road? Why is everyone else supposed to live to their “values”, when it is obvious they have none, really?

Sorry, just in a really bad mood today since a friend sent the sad news that her brother-in-law passed away last night, which put me in a dark mood for the morning. I thought I just felt bad for her family, and then realized – it’s been two years this week since my mom died. Ah, that explained the funk I’ve been in all week long. The body always, always remembers, even when things are not in our conscious thoughts.

Tell you what, people. If you really want to support the troops, fight for their damn medical care when they get home. My own brother-in-law, a former Marine, suffers leukemia and a bum leg from a terrorist attack, and post traumatic stress disorder. But he can’t get a full disability from our wonderful veteran’s administration, and his doctors here in San Diego basically wrote him off last year for the leukemia. Fortunately they moved to Tucson and the good doctors there have him in full remission. It doesn’t take much to find as many similar or worse stories of lack of care and coverage on the Internets. You want to support these guys? Quit buying magnets from China, and write your congress creatures a letter about the crappy care these soldiers get when they get back. That’s how you support the troops, folks. Get them decent pay and benefits, don’t put a friggin’ magnet on your car.

And don’t drive like an asshole if you do – it pisses the rest of us off.

Edwin Hutchinson, Gulf Fritillary

Lady butterfly,
I saw you a week ago.
Now you are back,
with your lover,
In tandem flights
And helical tangents:
How many times
You return gladly!

In the legends there is the story of the butterfly lovers. The loved each other so much that even in death, their hearts were fixed faithfully upon one another. In honor of their devotion to each other, the gods changed them into butterflies and let them come back together in reincarnation after reincarnation.

Would that all of us could manifest such determination and faith to what we love!

Deng Ming Tao, 365 Tao

A friend of mine was growing passion flower vines and became annoyed at all the little holes that were being eaten with. She wondered what she could spray them with, and I said, “Oh, don’t do that! Those are holes from butterfly caterpillars feeding on them. If you destroy them, you won’t have all these gorgeous butterflies around!” So she fell in love with butterflies, gained a new hobby of studying them, and now grows even more native plants and other butterfly flowers instead of just her roses, and introduced me to how to grow roses organically. It seemed to be a good exchange.

I have an entire wall outside my house covered with passion flowers and butterflies right now. I love to go out in the garden and see them flitting about, watch the butterflies enjoying their new wings, and hunt for the little caterpillars. The big carpenter bees have also taken a love to these flowers. From all this exuberance, there is one passion fruit on the entire mess of vines. And the dogs will probably find that and pull it off to play with it.

Doesn’t look much cleaner, eh?

GOP- The Culture of CORRUPTION.

Rep. Roy Blunt (R-MO) | Beyond Delay
Legislative Assistance for Jack Abramoff’s Client

Rep. Blunt and his staff have close connections to uber-lobbyist Jack Abramoff, who is the subject of criminal and congressional probes. In June 2003, Mr. Abramoff persuaded Majority Leader Tom DeLay to organize a letter, co-signed by Speaker Hastert, Whip Roy Blunt, and Deputy Whip Eric Cantor, that endorsed a view of gambling law benefitting Mr. Abramoff’s client, the Louisiana Coushatta, by blocking gambling competition by another tribe. Mr. Abramoff has donated $8,500 to Rep. Blunt’s leadership PAC, Rely on Your Beliefs.

If, as it appears, Rep. Blunt was accepting campaign contributions from Mr. Abramoff in exchange for using his official position so support a view of gambling law that would benefit Mr. Abramoff’s client, he would be in violation of the law.

Finally!

DeLay Is Indicted and Forced to Step Down as Majority Leader – New York Times

Representative Tom DeLay of Texas, the powerful House Republican majority leader, was accused by a Texas grand jury today of criminal conspiracy in a campaign fund-raising scheme.

Mr. DeLay was indicted on one count charging that he violated state election laws in September 2002. Two political associates, John D. Colyandro and James W. Ellis, were indicted with him.

I give up. This country is officially totally fucked up beyond all belief.

Sheehan Arrested Outside White House

By Daniela Deane and Petula Dvorak
Washington Post Staff Writers
Monday, September 26, 2005; 2:33 PM

Cindy Sheehan, the grieving California mother of a soldier slain in Iraq, was arrested today while protesting the Iraq war outside the White House.

Sheehan, whose 24-year-old son Casey was killed last year, and several dozen other protesters staged a sit-in on the sidewalk on Pennsylvania Avenue after marching along the pedestrian walkway, the Associated Press reported. Police warned them three times that they had to move along before making arrests, the news agency said.

Anti war demonstrators hold up signs as they march in front of the White House Saturday, Sept. 24, 2005 in Washington.

“The whole world is watching,” protesters chanted as Sheehan was led to a police vehicle.

Sheehan and some 200 other protesters sat in circles on the sidewalk, apparently courting arrest. Hundreds more people rallied in Lafayette Park, across Pennsylvania Avenue.

Sheehan’s arrest came after a massive antiwar demonstration Saturday in Washington which drew more than 100,000 people — the largest such demonstration since the Iraq war began in spring 2003. A demonstration supporting the war drew roughly 500 people Sunday.

Sheehan, 48, first attracted wide attention in August when she established the antiwar “Camp Casey” outside of President Bush’s Texas ranch. As part of the 26-day protest in Crawford, Sheehan asked for a meeting with Bush, which he declined.

Blue Sky Preserve, Jerry Schadd

My back is stooped from scholarship,
My eyes are dimmed by history’s words.
Surrounded though I may be by learning,
I still cannot compare with nature’s perfection.

Learning is a passion shared by many of us. There is a great allure to education and a fascination with the accomplishments of civilization. We go to libraries and museums. We go to exhibits showing the diggings from royal tombs. We are enchanted with new inventions. And yet, if we look out our windows and see a tree in its perfection, or gaze into a tide pool, or watch a cat as it strolls its territory, or see the flash of a blue jay, we can see another order of beauty and intelligence in this life.

The works of humanity cannot compare to the works of nature. The works of civilization lack the balance and refinement of nature. Too many times, our accomplishments are tainted by impure motives : profit, hardship, desire for fame, simple greed. We achieve, but we cannot foresee the results because we are unable to place our actions into a greater context.

Nature is a conglomeration of contending forces, of tooth and claw, venom and perfume, mud and excrement, eggs and bones, lightning and lava. It seems chaotic. It seems terrible. And yet, for all its unfathomable workings, it far surpasses the business of our society.

Think about what you do. How much of it can compare to the perfection of nature?

Deng Ming Tao, 365 Tao

“Look deep into nature, and then you will understand everything better.”
– Albert Einstein

“In nature we never see anything isolated, but everything in connection with something else which is before it, beside it, under it and over it.”
– Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

“In nature, nothing is perfect and everything is perfect. Trees can be contorted, bent in weird ways, and they’re still beautiful.” — Alice Walker

“To the dull mind nature is leaden. To the illumined mind the whole world burns and sparkles with light.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson

“The goal of life is to make your heartbeat match the beat of the universe, to match your nature with Nature.” — Joseph Campbell

Our morning walk with the dogs today was out to Blue Sky Preserve. Walking among the beautiful old oaks is a really pleasant way to spend the morning and admire the beauty of nature. It was assuming to watch some people cut themselves off still from the nature they were supposedly enjoying, with headphones, cell phones, running quickly instead of enjoying a stroll through the old oaks, or loud chatter to their walking partners instead of simply enjoying what was around them.

I wonder sometimes if people even know there is nature to be enjoyed. It seems they are often so wrapped up in themselves they forget there even is anything else. Why is it so hard to just enjoy the world as it is, instead of trying so hard to make ourselves and what is around us something more?

Daily Kos: [SECRET LOCATION REVEALED] Grover Greeted by Katrina ‘Bathtub’ Billboard; More dKos suggestions?

Working Assets, an organization that “helps busy people make a difference” organized an event that showed just how crude and dangerous Mr. Norquist’s ideas about government really are. Activists rented a truck whose cab was flanked by two twin billboards, featuring Field Marshal Norquist’s famous quote juxtaposed with an image of the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina – a drowned New Orleans. Appropriately, at 8:45 this morning Working Assets parked the truck in front of the offices of Americans for Tax Reform, an essential part of Norquist’s New Right brigade, and the meeting place for that weekly breakfast strategy session of rightist revolutionaries.

With the conspicuous truck parked squarely in front of Americans for Tax Reform’s locked-down offices, a sizeable handful of activists, with original chants that point to America’s shameful standards in high school English curricula, courted media photographers while making their presence known to the planners of the watery death of American government. “246810 What if a hurricane comes again? 13579 Your rich friends will be just fine.” Someone missed that 9th grade lesson on meter.

Heh. I like this kind of protest – smart, effective, and right where they work. You rock, guys….

And oh, boy, is my brother a grandfather…..

The Pueblo Chieftain Online – Pueblo, Colorado U.S.A

MONDAY MORNING SPECIAL
RATED:BABY
Bright And Bubbly You
Welcome to the world, GRANDSON

Dear Evan,

Well, grandson, you finally got here. Missed the State Fair by a day, but there’s always next year.

Your mother (She Who Must Be Obeyed Jr. II) brought you into the world and you were none too happy. You came in with a head of flaming red hair, kicking and screaming so much that they had to put the hospital in lock-down. Or was that just another fire drill?

Being She Jr. II’s first child, and quite possibly the most handsome baby ever born, you will probably get a lot of attention. That’s OK, sometimes it will seem like the world is picking on you, like when they put your mug shot in the newspaper and you aren’t even 2 weeks old. But you’re tough. Daddy is a U.S. Marine, after all.

* * *

There also will be a lot of “firsts” recorded during your first year of life. After that, your Baby Book will probably look like everyone else’s – one sentence per year, if you’re lucky (Age 2: Learning to ride trike; Age 3: Rode his tricycle over mom’s foot; Age 4: Got tricycle back.) You’ll fondly remember your first toy (cardboard box). When you get to be Grandpa’s age, you’ll read over the list of firsts and try to recapture the joy of youth and innocence.

If you have a little grandson to help you do that, it will be a whole lot easier.

My first words to you, I believe, were: “Stop acting like such a baby.”

You replied: “Wa-a-a-h-h-h!”

That’s probably how it will be with us, for a while. Your good looks and winning personality may sway other people and ease your path in life. But you’ll find Grandpa’s a tough customer. Well, OK, I’d spoil you rotten no matter what. But the point is, if you keep crying like that, I’ll . . . Oh, wait. You seem to have fallen asleep again. How cute!

* * *

Now, I’ve started a little project. I’ve decided to take a photo of you every day (actually, about a dozen, but I’m talking about only the best ones) and collect them all. Later, we’ll publish them in one of those “Year in the Life” photo books.

We’ll use the money to send you to college.

I know this will be a best-seller, because in the first few days people have just flocked to see your baby photos. They say things like:

“What a cute baby!”

“Look how red his hair is!”

“Woodka, you showed me those same photos just an hour ago!”

Please don’t tell She Jr. II of our little plan, she’ll think I’m exploiting you and probably take my camera away. . . . Hey! Bring back that back!

* * *

Finally, a lot of grandpas would try to warn you about the state of the world right now. There is a war going on, a hurricane just destroyed one of America’s cities and the country is still trying to recover from the 9/11 terrorist attacks four years ago.

But I’m not going to try to scare you or put the burden of trying to make the world a peaceful place on your tiny shoulders.

There is trouble in every age. For instance, when I was a youth, the Huns had just sacked Rome, the Black Plague was destroying entire villages and the Spanish Inquisition had just begun.

Did I mention that Grandpa sometimes tells tall tales?

* * *

Enjoy your life, Evan, there is a world of possibility ahead for you. You are a blessing to our family. Welcome to the world.

If you are awake
Late enough
You can hear the planes come in
With the bodies
Of the dead
They will not acknowledge
Or let others see
Brought home, in the night…

There Is A Brokenness
by Rashani

There is a brokenness
out of which comes the unbroken,
A shatteredness out of which blooms the unshatterable.
There is a sorrow
Beyond all grief which leads to joy
And a fragility
Out of which depth emerges strength.
There is a hollow space
Too vast for words
Through which we pass with each loss,
Out of whose darkness we are sanctified into being.
There is a cry deeper than all sound
Whose serrated edges cut the heart
As we break open
To the place inside which is unbreakable
And whole.

“Hope floats . . . We are Unsinkable”

Covington artist Tammi Curtis-Ellis created this vision of New Orleans hope.

From the mailbag, Tammi Curtis-Ellis sends us an image of a painting showing the hope and determination of the New Orleans area.

“I am an artist from Covington, LA. While we had emormous damage to our community, it can not compare to the emotional and physical damage that the people of other areas suffered.

“During the days that I was travelling between my home and my children’s apartment in Baton Rouge, I completed this painting. My main focus was the hope and determination that is such an element of the people of the Gulf Coast.

“That is why I chose the scripture of Jeremiah 29:11 – “For I know the plans I have for you,’ declares the Lord, ‘plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future”

“Also, the words “Hope floats and We are unsinkable” came to my mind while I was visualizing this painting.

“My heartfelt desire is that I can find a financial backer to supply the money for quality prints of this painting and marketing so that all the sale proceeds can go to Habitat for Humanity and CERF (Craft Emergency Relief Fund), an organization to assist artist in times of disaster.

“So many artist friends of mine from the Gulf Coast have been displaced, some losing everything. We cannot afford to lose the visual interpretation that they bring to the life of the coast. I hope I can be an artist helping artist, but I need assistance myself to make this happen, as my income relied on the New Orleans art market. I ask that this story receive attention and that we find a way to bring our artists home. The painting can also be viewed on the homepage of my website at www.tamiellis.ws. ”

Picasso, Blue Nude

Loneliness need not be despair.
It could be an opportunity.

Why are people lonely? It is because they feel no contact with anyone or anything else. They need to feel that they are valued, that they are a part of something, and that their environment will respond to them. When that does not happen, they feel isolated.

One of the major strategies for combating loneliness is to have a mate and family. That is not always perfect, and the problems of a relationship and family sometimes outweigh the terror of loneliness. It is far better to be self-sufficient. Then whether one has loved ones or not, one will not suffer from loneliness.

Some people claim that self-sufficiency is a myth. A person is a social animal, they declare; people cannot successfully live outside of some community. But that is not the correct way to understand true self-sufficiency. What we are referring to is a supreme sense of connection with oneself and the cosmos around oneself. This doesn’t preclude community with others, but it does prevent the excesses and shortcomings that occur when society is one’s only source of union.

Tao surrounds us. One who is with Tao is never lonely, but is an integral part of the natural cycle. In the same way that water surrounds a fish, Tao surrounds us. If we feel lonely, then it is only because we are forgetting how we are totally immersed in Tao. That is why loneliness can be an opportunity : It reminds us that we are dwelling on our own egoistic identity rather than on the support of Tao.

Deng Ming Tao, 365 Tao

“Language… has created the word “loneliness” to express the pain of being alone. And it has created the word “solitude” to express the glory of being alone.” — Paul Tillich

“Loneliness adds beauty to life. It puts a special burn on sunsets and makes night air smell better.” — Henry Rollins

“Being solitary is being alone well: being alone luxuriously immersed in doings of your own choice, aware of the fullness of your own presence rather than of the absence of others. Because solitude is an achievement.” — Alice Koller

“What a lovely surprise to finally discover how unlonely being alone can be.” — Ellen Burstyn

“Solitude is not something you must hope for in the future. Rather, it is a deepening of the present, and unless you look for it in the present you will never find it.” — Thomas Merton

If you went back and read some of my earliest blog postings from a few years ago, you would see it was a time when I felt quite lonely and isolated. After my brief breakdown, I went through a period of needing to be around other people, and yet, there were few people then who seemed to want to be around me. I was not so much lonely as incredibly anxious when I was by myself.

As things stabilized for me, I felt less and less need to be around others, and returned to the state that was most common for me in my youth – being happiest to be left alone. I grew up enjoying solitude, rather than wanting the company of a lot of other people. i typically had a few close friends, and while polite to others, was always somewhat aloof. The classic introvert.

So I am now pretty much comfortable either way – I don’t feel the stress and strain as much that I once felt being around a lot of other people at a time, but I also don’t feel lonely when by myself. So I suppose I’ve reached a state of being self-sufficient. And those I’m most comfortable around are pretty self-sufficient as well. I’m always aware of what is around me, whether nature, people, animals, whatever. And I know who around me is comfortable with themselves, who is putting on a show, who is getting high on being the star of the show, who is taking it all in and absorbing everything.

The last group interests me the most, usually, and are the ones I gravitate towards – people who not only know themselves well but are very aware of others. And there, very often, you’ll find the followers of the Tao, whether they know they are or not.

“When words become unclear, I shall focus with photographs. When images become inadequate, I shall be content with silence.” –Ansel Adams

Seek silence.
Gladden in silence.
Adore in silence.

As one progresses on the path, one seeks silence more and more. It will be a great comfort, a tremendous source of solace and peace.

Once you find deep solitude and calm, there will be a great gladness in your heart. Here finally is the place where you need neither defense nor offense — the place where you can truly be open. There will be bliss, wonder, the awe of attaining something pure and sacred.

After that, you will feel adoration of silence. This is the peace that seems to elude so many. This is the beauty of Tao.

Deng Ming Tao, 365 Tao

The Tao is silence
words
cannot capture.
The Tao is emptiness
not even
silence
can embrace.
(The Tao is Tao, 2)

It is part of wisdom to know when to speak and when to use silence to point the way. It is also part of wisdom not to say anything, either verbally or through silence, when people are not ready to listen.

In the final analysis, real understanding of the Tao can only be reached when you go the way yourself.

True understanding of the Tao is based on experience. It cannot be transmitted by either words or silence.

The only thing one can do to guide others is to point the way. — Jos Slabbert

How do you bring people into harmony with the Tao?
You can only point at the invisible.
It is like using sign language in the dark.
The mystery is that it works.
(The Tao is Tao, 95)

You are the One which is aware
of the awareness of objects and ideas.
You are the One that is even more silent than awareness.
You are the Life which precedes the concept of life.
Your nature is silence and it is not attainable,
It always Is.

‘This – Prose and Poetry of Dancing Emptiness’
– Sri H. W. L. Poonja (Papaji)

Our original nature is, in highest truth,
devoid of any atom of objectivity.
It is void, omnipresent, silent, pure;
it is glorious and mysterious peaceful joy ~
and that is all.

Enter deeply into it by awakening yourself.

~ Huang Po

“Music is the silence between the notes.” — Claude Debussy

“He who does not understand your silence will probably not understand your words.” — Elbert Hubbard

“See how nature – trees, flowers, grass – grows in silence; see the stars, the moon and the sun, how they move in silence…we need silence to be able to touch souls.” –Mother Teresa

“I have learned silence from the talkative, tolerance from the intolerant, and kindness from the unkind; yet strangely, I am ungrateful to these teachers” — Kahlil Gibran

“The fish in the water is silent, the animal on the earth is noisy, the bird in the air is singing. But man has in him the silence of the sea, the noise of the earth and the music of the air.” — Rabindranath Tagore

“The water in a vessel is sparkling; the water in the sea is dark. The small truth has words which are clear; the great truth has great silence.” — Rabindranath Tagore

“In the attitude of silence the soul finds the path in an clearer light, and what is elusive and deceptive resolves itself into crystal clearness. Our life is a long and arduous quest after Truth.” –Mahatma Gandhi

I enjoy silence, both the lack of sound, and the silence beyond the chattering of my mind. When I am most at peace, there are few thoughts in my head, other than perhaps, “ah”! or “mmm…” The pleasure of a beautiful rose in my garden with its sweet fragrance, some great sex, some really good chocolate, and other sensual things can bring me to that point. But the deeper silence comes mainly in my awareness of the Tao, the moments I see real depth in the world, in the sun shining on a leaf and noticing all the texture and intricacies of just one leaf, or a landscape like those Ansel Adams photographed.

But the very best silence is to be able to hear the noise around me, the television in the background, the music from my son’s room, the arguing between my husband and son, the cat snoring next to me in her sunbeam, the click of the keyboard – and still, be able to reach the quiet space within myself. Ah.

Native Growers » I wish they all could be California girls…

Just about everyone in Los Angeles has a cause, but Rene Russo’s is a decidedly lonely mission. While many of her Hollywood peers use their celebrity to exalt the hybrid Prius or bash Republicans, she is championing plants that many homeowners are unfamiliar with or, worse, dismiss as weeds.

Russo has become an advocate for the use of California native plants, which she is trying to promote as a low-maintenance panacea for the region’s water supply uncertainties.

“People have equated natives with chaparral, with brush, with dead, and it’s erroneous,’’ she said with obvious frustration in an interview at her Brentwood home.

To prove her point, Russo offered a tour of her lush garden on a recent Sunday morning while off from “Yours, Mine and Ours,’’ a remake of the 1968 Lucille Ball-Henry Fonda comedy she is filming with Dennis Quaid.

Russo, 51, said her own schooling in natives came more than five years ago, after she and her husband, Dan Gilroy, a screenwriter, bought two houses on three acres. As the couple, who have an 11-year-old daughter, set out to remodel the bigger house, Russo hired a garden designer to help her identify the tangle of flora that grew around the houses and along a steep hillside.

There was lawn everywhere,” she said.Oaks were dying,’’ she added, from over-watering. She decided to discard two-thirds of what was there — invaders such as weeping willows, acacias, Brazilian pepper — and replace them with California buckeye, Coulter pine, pitcher sage and dozens of other native species. About three-fourths completed, the garden needs little pruning and watering — every three weeks in the summer and not at all in winter — and no fertilizing, she said.

Russo’s devotion — she has lent her name to fundraisers and public events promoting natives — shows in the design of the contemporary home she is renovating. It is almost all glass, and even the front door, studded with windows, offers a generous view of her California cypress, lilac and yellow-berry toyon.

“I love the garden more than the house,’’ Russo said as she walked down the rugged paths of her property.

Just had to cross-post this piece from my other blog, Native Growers. I love California native plants, and seeing someone with as much presence and exposure (yes, literally, see “Thomas Crown Affair!”) as Rene Russo promote native plants is truly wonderful. I can’t afford the house in Brentwood, but I grow a fair number of natives on my little plot of land in Poway ( a lovely little city next to San Diego), and would sure like to see her garden!

March of the Conservatives: Penguin Film as Political Fodder – New York Times

On the conservative Web site WorldNetDaily.com, an opponent of abortion wrote that the movie “verified the beauty of life and the rightness of protecting it.”

At a conference for young Republicans, the editor of National Review urged participants to see the movie because it promoted monogamy. A widely circulated Christian magazine said it made “a strong case for intelligent design.”

The movie is “March of the Penguins,” and of all the reactions it has evoked, perhaps the most surprising is its appeal to conservatives. They are hardly its only audience; the film is the second highest grossing documentary of all time, behind “Fahrenheit 9/11.”

But conservative groups have turned its stirring depiction of the mating ordeals of emperor penguins into an unexpected battle anthem in the culture wars.

“March of the Penguins,” the conservative film critic and radio host Michael Medved said in an interview, is “the motion picture this summer that most passionately affirms traditional norms like monogamy, sacrifice and child rearing.”

What a great idea. I think all conservatives ought to move to the South Pole immediately, and join their fellow conservative brethren! Nuthin’ like a little “Penguin Lust”, after all!

Monet, Autumn on the Seine

Spring was a time of swaggering declarations.
Reaching autumn, one finds few absolutes.
Life is mystery and ambiguity,
Toward winter, that now seems agreeable and comfortable.

When young, one makes heroic attempts. The world will surely bend to our will, we think, and we will surely make grand contributions. Social injustice will be righted. The big questions will be answered.

I once went to see a master writer. Long retired, white-haired and fragile, she nevertheless evinced a sharp and discerning mind. I was a novice writer. She had edited hundreds of great authors. I peppered her with all my anxieties and asked her all the questions that my teachers never answered. To most of my questions she would only answer, “Yes.” She knew all the answers, and she knew all the exceptions, and she knew the best thing that an older person could tell a younger person was “Yes.” Yes, the affirmative. Yes, as in keep exploring. Yes, as in there are no ultimate answers.

I used to push for an immediate resolution to daily problems. Now, I am not so anxious. Is science right about things, or is religion? Is there good and evil on a metaphysical level? Is there one god, or are there many gods, or no gods? A hundred answers exist for these questions. They are all known, but no one agrees. Today, I think it all very fine. Let there be a hundred answers with none of them entirely correct. The asking of the question is already enough.

Deng Ming Tao, 365 Tao

“We cling to our own point of view, as though everything depended on it. Yet our opinions have no permanence; like autumn and winter, they gradually pass away.”
– Chuang Tzu

For man, autumn is a time of harvest, of gathering together. For nature, it is a time of sowing, of scattering abroad. ~Edwin Way Teale

Autumn

Walking outside tonight
Smelling that familiar scent
The one that says, “Autumn”
Thinking of you again,
My old friend.

How many Autumns has it been
Since that beautiful night
We climbed the stairway to the stars
Together for the first time?
A soft kiss joined us…

Ages and ages ago
You’re long gone from me now
We married other lovers
But that familiar scent of Autumn
Always brings you to mind.

– My own Autumn memories….

In San Diego, autumn usually brings a wonderful Indian Summer season that is warm and like a second spring, or even summer if it’s hot enough. I’ve seen 100 degree days in November here. But we do get the lovely cool autumn evenings with their glorious scent that just says so much to me this time of year.

I do think of autumn as a time for sowing as well as harvesting. I am often out planting a fall garden, although this year I think I’ll let things lie fallow for a bit. I may put in a few plants, but the gardening bug just hasn’t been with me this year.

I love the colors of autumn, the deep golds and reds, the light that gives everything sort of a golden glow.

And yes, things are indefinite at this time of my life, as I enter my own personal autumn. There are no ultimate answers, and it is enough to ask the questions. Those who seem too sure of themselves, too sure of their answers and their causes, are the ones who worry me now. The ones who don’t realize that life is full of mystery to explore, full of choices to make and options of different ways of living life to explore, and we will each fulfill them in our own way. Those who want to deny others the privilege of finding their own path by telling them how to live or what to do bother me most of all. They have the right to their own path, of course – but not to direct how others may live.