30 June 2007





All I can say
is it’s been a good day
I’m wearing my favorite sweater
lavender
with the white buttons
My stomach is full
with lentil soup
and strawberries
The kids are healthy
and making their way
I hear from friends
and former relatives
I have a soft clean bed
My parents are here at home content
There was dew in the grass this morning
like so many diamonds in the sun
And rain and thunder late in the day

29 June 2007

Seeds from wild wheat are shaped like spears with the length of the shaft split in two. Each half of the shaft has little appendages angled upward, like the threads of a feather but sturdier. The point of the spear—the actual seed—lands on the ground. When moisture in the air shifts, the shaft-halves spread apart as they grow dry, then pull together as they grow damp. This opening and closing gives the little spurs the opportunity to grip deeper and deeper into the earth.

Thus, it’s a seed that plants itself.

(See Smithsonian, July, 2007.)

28 June 2007

When out of touch
with my feelings
the more at risk
I am to hurt others
I become blind
and cannot see
or worse yet
my eyes, my gut
give distorted data.
how do I know?
I try to find
another pair of eyes
to help me see

am I toxic? am I good?
how do I care
for the others around me?

how do I do no harm?

27 June 2007





Maybe you can’t tell what this is—I couldn’t when I was doing warm-ups this morning. It looked at first like a ring of smoke, or a ghost. I stopped and walked up to it, found a web, a spider weaving round and round, 36 spokes, working inward. The web overall is kite-shaped, cords from the outer diamond points stretching to branches and ground—fifteen feet high, ten feet wide. The business part of the web—circular—a foot plus in diameter. The ring of smoke.

I stopped and watched the spider's progress, the glistening net, a universe trembling before me. A soft breeze made it bulge and expand, made it pulse. I saw just how our threads interweave across time and space. I saw how metaphors work, and the bending of time. I saw the web as a perfect iteration of universe, its construction frought with intersection, the weaving of threads. Even with all of its empty space, it still catches wind like a kite or sail. Flexes as though a great force pulls its center. Outer connection points arch closer to inner, just for a moment, and then release.

Space, time, synchronicity, metaphor, iterations, intersections, bending of light—in short, connection—all modeled by this industrious spider, small and undramatic in appearance. My photo doesn’t do her effort justice.

I went back to my practice. I arched at the waist, my arms tracing circles 360 degrees along horizon. The spider worked the vertical plane—I the horizontal—touching each spoke of universe.

26 June 2007





She is standing near the sea, her arms around a great shallow bowl made of mother-of-pearl, shining greys, pinks and blues.

25 June 2007




A cottontail hopped about in the field in the steady rain during lunch today. It didn’t seem to be seeking shelter.

This brought to mind a train ride from London. My friend pointed to a soccer field: Fifty rabbits spread out and browsing across the green pitch.

A long time ago, I dreamed of a field of rabbits.

I’m reading a book called Kafka on the Shore by Haruki Murakami, translated by Philip Gabriel. Reading Murakami feels like rabbits popping up everywhere. My rabbits. I don't know how that works.

My favorite character is Mr. Nakata, a simple man. As he is reminded: 'Other people can read all the books they want and they're still not gonna know how to talk to stones or cats.'

24 June 2007

Maybe it’s a fork
stainless steel
in the road,
or lacquered chopsticks in the grass-
a hook, line and sinker
in the middle of a gym floor-
Mount Fuji and a Cat-
You’re not seeking a mystery-
a mystery’s seeking you.

23 June 2007













These are three photos I've used for desktop images. Right now, the picture of the yellow flowers at dawn through the hotel window at Pacy-sur-Eure is on my screen, a picture I've posted before, but here it is again.

Sometimes I get discouraged. These photos remind me: Joy, beauty, mystery have shown up in ways I never imagined. Life's truly an adventure. The well doesn't run dry...

22 June 2007










He’s 8 years old and was here a couple days ago because his grandmother had business with my mother. I gave him some fruit juice and the TV remote, but time passed so I returned to the living room and asked if he’d like to go outside. His face lit up, a big smile showing teeth growing in at different stages. I mean his face really lit up.

So we went out. I accompanied him both out of interest and because it didn’t seem wise to leave him alone in an unfamiliar place with cars going by so fast up front.

He wore crocs on his feet which was a good thing since the grass was quite wet. A bony little guy, all elbows and knees.

Kids like being in the driver’s seat of a tractor, and he was no exception. He talked of how he really likes engines, and knew the part recently attached to the steering column was a battery. He likes to climb trees, but the branches of our old climbing trees, the magnolias, were out of his height range. He said the lightning-struck oak was like a tree in a movie. He pointed up and said the branches looked like a big hand. He was interested in the tree with its one remaining orange showing all the little green oranges how it can be done. And the fig tree—he likes figs. Too bad they’re still hard and green. The goldfish seemed to unnerve him a little, his body tensed, though he said they’ve grown big. That piqued my interest—they look pretty little to me. He noticed the kites hardly ever have to flap their wings.

As we returned to the front door, his grandmother emerged—he was happy to see her- and it was time for them to part. He turned around for a last wave.

I was honored to share his company, that he was willing to share his perspective with me.

21 June 2007

happy, says the cup
blue letters on white

tea leaves only yield
when dropped in hot water

small beads unfurl
into banners

undulate
in this handheld pond

breathe out-Ah!-
fragrant steam

the cup warms the palms
the mind is limp and fluid

20 June 2007






I extended my right hand toward a snake. As I awoke, I saw it was a coiled rattlesnake. Maybe this isn't a good idea. I slowly withdrew my hand.

I’ve been thinking of snakes lately. When I was a girl, every walk in the yard or pasture contained some element of danger. Not because of grass snakes and king snakes, though they were startling. And the rat snake up on the barn rafter above the chickens, it was as big around as a grown man's arm. Eww. But the real concern was water moccasins and rattlers. Common and poisonous.

Since I arrived here in Louisiana in March, I haven’t encountered a single snake of any variety. I asked my dad about it. He can’t remember when he last saw one. The barn storage area once was littered with snakeskins. He can’t remember when he last found a snakeskin.

There are frogs. I’ve seen a raccoon, a possum, an armadillo. More species of birds than I ever remember. Dragonflies and mosquitoes and the green lizards with the red necks and the black lizards with dark red heads.

I’m scared of snakes, so on one level, I don’t miss them. But with none evident, something seems wrong. A broken link in the ecosystem? Worth paying attention.

(I believe the snake in the photo above is a harmless little king snake. I took the picture in Hays County in Texas a couple years ago.)

19 June 2007




I’m finding it hard to write about Juneteenth. Oh, I start off briskly enough with a few googled facts and dates and some wanderings about the real reasons it took so long for the emancipation of Texas slaves to take effect.

What happens is I then slip into some experience of the world then, blindness, fear of loss and punishment, the confusing and frightening joy of freedom. And my mind goes into roundabout. It’s a scary piece of history to visit—and if you’re from the south as I am, it’s imbedded in your genes one way or another.

Imagine—to see your house servants and field hands no longer as owned appendages to your life, but as men and women. No longer under your command. Imagine, to see your ‘owners’ as powerless to stop you from taking one step, then another away from them, off their land into your own risky rich unboundaried journey.

18 June 2007




We try to respect a closed door.

17 June 2007

I was four
and I was drowning
flipped and taken by a wave
Upside-down
in a bright inflated ring
toes reach for sky…

All I remember are the fish
lots and lots of fish
Dark shapes
thrusting through
watered sunlight and muted sound
Fish so intriguing, so fleet
that perhaps I held my breath…

A stranger pulled me from the gulf
by my feet
but I still see fish
brown shapes chasing
in poetical synchrony
as though perhaps I’m swimming
I never left the sea…

16 June 2007





PALATINE, Ill. - An elementary school science teacher in this Chicago suburb doesn't have to turn on the news for an update on NASA's space mission. She just turns on her video baby monitor.

Since Sunday, one of the two channels on Natalie Meilinger's baby monitor has been picking up black-and-white video from inside the space shuttle Atlantis. The other still lets her keep an eye on her baby.

"Whoever has a baby monitor knows what you'll usually see," Meilinger said. "No one would ever expect this."

Live video of the mission is available on NASA's Web site, so it's possible the monitor is picking up a signal from somewhere.

"It's not coming straight from the shuttle," NASA spokeswoman Brandi Dean said. "People here think this is very interesting and you don't hear of it often — if at all."

Meilinger silenced disbelieving co-workers by bringing in a video of the monitor to show her class on Tuesday, her students' last day of school. At home, 3-month-old Jack and 2-year-old Rachel don't quite understand what their parents are watching.

"I've been addicted to it and keep waiting to see what's next," Meilinger said.

Summer Infant, the monitor's manufacturer, is investigating what could be causing the transmission, communications director Cindy Barlow said. She said she's never heard of anything similar happening.

"Not even close," she said. "Gotta love technology."

AP
14 June 2007

14 June 2007












Reflections from Room 8
Outpost Motel
22, 24 May 2007





Soon after I posted yesterday, I remembered two Shintaido teacher offerings I forgot—both that have been valuable to me. The first: create a vacuum. The second: I can still see the teacher’s wordless hand, angling side to side like a fish or a sailboat. These are my words: tack into the wind.



13 June 2007




What my Teachers told me:

Take long steps.
Aim for horizon.
Go! Go!
Run past limitations.
Practice falling.
Drop the shoulders.
Lead with your koshi (gut).
Follow with your koshi.
Connect with your koshi.
Strike with sincerity.
Strike as many as possible with one blow.
Trust.
Be who you are.
Be aware of others, of nature around you.
Connect to Ten (heaven).
Relax your hands, your toes.
Open.
Soften.
Be the best you can be.
Be happy.

12 June 2007




Don’t let one ounce of force remain in the blood vessels, bones, and ligaments to tie yourself up. Then you can be agile and able to change.

Yang Chen-fu

11 June 2007




Lunch with Leo Kottke


in the parking lot
in the heat
of the middle of the day
moisture rising from
an asphalt puddle
as big as one car slot
taking up the shade
of one small parking lot tree
you can see exactly what I mean
I sit, windows up
slow solar cooking
intent on hearing
just one more time
cut 7
Echoeing Gilewitz
and who the hell knows
what that is
but my insides hang
on each hung note
the slidey ride
of human fingers
running down strings
pushed against fret board
a human who
defies musical gravity
reconstructs relativity
and twists the inner organ
known for aberrant behavior
and uneven marking of time
I don’t know
it’s not about words that’s for sure
though he makes word salad
at a performance
like a random number
generator
the only performer,
only famous person
I’ve ever thought
I want to have lunch
one time
one time
to sit with this man.

on a university station
in Washington state
the afternoon after
a fumbling entry into blind knowledge
there was a sunset
like an open wound
torn and red
riveting pain and beauty
I leaned against the window
and there came 12 strings
weaving dusk to my emotion
the absence of love to its possibility
you can feel exactly what I mean
I never knew who it was
until one night
a spare ticket came my way, and there I was
at a concert
listening to controlled and trembling strings
I’d heard that once before
and there was no time no time
I don’t think I moved
and that night
walking to the dorm
the clouds were icy light
transparent wanderers
across a moon still etched
against unaltered night and all was one

now I’m in a sweltering car
listening like a child
as he plays and stops and
is that all?
and no again and stops
maybe this time?
no again and stops
and maybe…
sunset
midnight
now this asphalt picnic
proffered unto me
a shout toward noon
with Leo Kottke

10 June 2007













Happy, happy, Sally-ally!

09 June 2007




A fogged lense-a blind shot—but the picture is just to document the story of the lily, part two. The flower first appeared on May 31, the old Memorial Day, middle of the field. An unexpected gift.

That night, there was heavy rain that battered the blooms; the lilies wilted, a one-day phenomenon.

So it seemed. This morning as I practiced boh in the front yard, I looked east across the pasture and was rather confused because there again were the lilies. After practice, I tromped through wet grass to see: two flowers and three buds yet to open. The very same plant.

I took a picture, surprised a lily could bloom again just 9 or 10 days after its first bloom.

The original brought pleasure to several people. My dad stuck a length of PVC to mark the location so he wouldn’t mow the plant down with his tractor. The story and photos brightened my mother. She can’t walk that far to see the flowers. She told the people at her beauty parlor. They wondered what kind of lily it was and how it got there. Maybe a bird carried it. Maybe a flood washed a bulb into the field. One stylist didn’t see what the fuss was about. So there’s a lily in a pasture.

I showed her the photos on my laptop. She grew quiet. She said her mother had lilies just like that. Perhaps she would talk to her mom soon.

This morning, there was the female kite up on the snag, chittering conversationally, the babies carrying on high in the nest. There were the six goldfish in full view, not secretive as they usually are. A honeysuckle in riotous bloom. Fresh magnolia blossoms. A pair of roseate spoonbills, big pink birds, that flew over as I approached the fish. Dandelions and thistles, and the second blooming of the lily in the field.

07 June 2007

Robert Lang transforms two dimensions into three. This month’s issue of Smithsonian has photos of his cicada, fiddler crab, tarantula. Even a cuckoo clock. Each one made of a single sheet of paper. Some require hundreds of folds. A physicist-mathematician-artist, Lang’s practice of origami is the source of his deep understanding of how the universe works. He’s been folding paper since he was six.

Lang has created computer algorithms that help engineers design the folds for automobile air bags. His work helps engineers design a way to collapse the material of a tremendous telescope (Eyeglass) so that it might be transported into space to view planets outside of our solar system.

In addition to his passion and the beauty of his work, what captivates me is seeing how practicing the most basic forms can blossom into such elegantly complex solutions.





It’s not all about you.

Sometimes bad to hear, sometimes good.

I’ve spent time these past weeks working on a project, and every step forward I took, I was thrown back three. Think trying to move one little stone, and having a boulder appear that must be moved out of the way first. Then another boulder. You climb the boulder, you go around the boulder. Time passes and the little stone is still unmoved. All the boulders crash, and you must clear them out and start over again. Time passes. You’ve aimed all your energy toward moving the first little stone, and it’s still sitting there weeks later, as though you’ve done nothing.

I’d overestimated my capability. Or maybe my intelligence or drive. Maybe I was just lazy, or couldn’t do anything in my whole life right.

Today I learned the little stone in its present setting could not be moved. Period. Incompatible operating system. Oh.

Good to hear, it's not all about me.

It’s not all about you.

06 June 2007

Nothing like a little sword work and a cup of tea to cure what ails you.

I continue to practice Shintaido 5-6 times a week early in the mornings. I’m far from any teachers, so I practice alone. It may be hard to describe what shintaido is, but it’s not hard to list some of its benefits. Though I was introduced to it a year and a half ago, I didn’t have regular access to classes until October last year. I was reasonably fit then-I practiced yoga, was an avid walker, and occasionally ran or swam. I had some problems too, foot pain and what had been diagnosed as a pinched nerve and chronic bursitis in my left shoulder. I had done physical therapy and seemed to have gotten all the benefit I could: pretty good range of motion but still sharp burning sensations down the length of my arm that would awaken me in the night.

After practicing shintaido--especially boh (staff) a couple months--it disappeared. No more nerve or shoulder pain. No limitations in range of motion. I haven’t been ill a day. Despite the occasional dark spell, my energy level has soared. I'm physically stronger than I've been in my life. I’ve met very interesting people for whom I feel passion. Shintaido has brought me strength to meet difficult situations in life—it has even given me answers I can keep in my pocket, but that still seem to bring others hope.

I’ve participated in meditations for peace, for direction in the new year, and to learn more about life and death. I can only share what I’ve learned in bits and pieces because it’s too big still to assimilate. I do feel the change in my mood, confidence and behavior communicates to others what I’ve learned, even while I’m still searching for words.

Of course shintaido is also about what you bring to it. I was taught at the very beginning don't mess with half way. Pour everything into what calls me. Go farther than all the way.

It’s been scary at times, because this physical/spiritual practice has made me more in touch with who I am. I experience things I have no words for. But it’s the fear that’s uncomfortable. What I’ve encountered has been only good and beautiful. Lonely sometimes because it’s hard to find ways to share the unusual, and it’s so big and beautiful it’s hard to hold in.

The most difficult part has been human relations. Working with people ready to embrace me from the start, people who have been so imaginatively supportive throughout: hard for me to be visible, hard to be loved. Then there's stranger comes to town and triggers interesting reactions, steps on toes, or stumbles into groups that were doing just fine before there were any strangers, thank you very much.

Yet, these are the people for whom I quickly felt passion. And these are the situations that teach me about my contributions to discord. Here we are, a varied crew together for varied reasons, but presumably all interested in enhancing peace within ourselves, our relationship with our world and beyond. When we struggle with each other, when we hang in there nonetheless, we are solving the problems of the world on a small scale. What we learn within ourselves and among ourselves about getting along is communicated to those we touch and echoes to other levels. And, of course, the more we are self aware, the less likely we create or add to strife.

This has been the most interesting year of my life. It has been mind-blowing, crushing, brilliant, lusty, exhausting, energizing, confusing, expanding and never ever boring.

I was doing cartwheels the other day. I’m 54 years old.

05 June 2007




after the storm...
Yesterday, I posted an entry around 8 AM. It was nicely written enough, but something was so wrong about it that I went into a crisis kind of state. Knowing it was hanging in cyberspace, I wanted to throw up. Finally, around noon, I deleted it—breaking one of my own rules. I’ve only deleted entries twice before.

I remained in distress, as though I were a stone plummeting. I'd lost perspective about myself, the people in my life, what I do or don't do. Nothing shifted until I was driving home at the cusp of a lightning storm. I was thinking about the weekly Brezsny horoscope I’d read that had seemed so irrelevant. I mean—what problems did I have that might devour me? I was doing pretty good.

Well, something seemed to be devouring me now. I tried to shift my mood, away from plummeting stone toward, as Brezsny advised, gargantuan natural force rising from within the perfect storm. No ounce of force surfaced within me. Then, as I was stopped at a light, windshield wipers sweeping, a truck drove before me with big blue letters blazed on its side: The Perfect Storm.

I didn’t feel good immediately, but there was the spark of humor. The self I was rejecting, the truth in me I was devaluing, supported by a friendly little white truck.

The sky cleared at dark, and for the first time since I’ve been here, I saw a satellite and constellations. Seeing the Big Dipper point to the North Star, I regained my bearings.

03 June 2007

This morning my eyes followed light, and the sun shot across the neighbor’s field and lit her oak tree all gold and beautiful and I realized I had never seen this tree. The neighbor’s tree is closer to the house than most of our own, but because of a mental boundary, I couldn't see it. The squirrels there were hers, not ours. (Ha! The squirrels never knew...)

When I lived in Texas, we watched on television radar images of weather systems rolling across the state, sometimes into Louisiana and Mississippi. What amused me was the big blank area beneath the state. As though there were no land south of the US border. As though the hurricanes, thunderstorms, tornadoes did not venture past the political line. As though there were not real people there affected. As though weather in Mexico did not exist.

There's so much I don't see because of brain boundaries. Do I wait for the tree to fall across the line to appreciate its existence? To be shocked when the invisible is suddenly right in my face?

Let the barriers dissolve and I'll see more clearly. Horizons stretch far past map lines and fences and ethnic groups, far past my imagination.

02 June 2007

in the end
I had my table
with its single flower
its vertical window
gazing out
to the roundabout

I got up
hung in back
she handed me
the brown spotted oeuf dur
more baguette on the cutting board
I took the lowly ends
no longer to play guest

when asked her name
how beautiful it sounded
uttered from her heart
the play was over

its scripted scenes
assigned roles
bitter boundaries
rendered with such vigor at night
now yesterday's theater
diminished by the morning light

01 June 2007








Last Friday in Dripping Springs, I stopped in a cafĂ©. There were roses hanging from the ceiling, bouquets of dead, long-stem roses. As I stood near the counter waiting, music started to play—the score from Harry Potter. The roses started to sway, as though they had magically come to life.

The air conditioner vent was near them, the air blowing the bouquets.

I asked the cashier if it would be alright if I took some pictures of the roses. She said sure. In fact she seemed relieved I wasn’t going to complain about how long the food was taking. So I went in the drizzle to the car, got my camera, and took the pictures you see here.