Taking the ideas in my head out
Writing them down
Helps me mold and shape them like clay.

I can turn each piece and examine it once I have it trapped
in solid form.
Confined and less fluid, it cannot slip through my grasp as easily.

Thoughts easily spin and twirl.
Will-o'-the-wisp just beyond reach.
Trapped on a page, they are pinned.
Or penned?

Photo by Brad Neathery

Small patches of snow from high mountains melt in summer's heat.
High mountain lakes fill with ice-cold water.
Some snow-melt runs off down-slope.
Sheer granite faces glistening and glittering with the rivulets.

A cycle repeated for eons and my entire life.

The sturdiness of glaciated granite canyons reassures my soul.

Photo by Michelle Miller (the haze is from California wildfires)

Now in the era of Information, we encounter false and true stories daily.

How to separate what is true from what is not?

Given our history of endemic racism and "might is right," many of the cultural narratives we accept without question leave gaping holes about what really happened. The victor writes the history and puts themselves in good light.

I recently saw a post shared on a friend's social media account about the origins of Thanksgiving. It was meant to provoke. It prompted me to do a search for the "facts." I know the story well of Squanto and the pilgrims at Plymouth in 1620. He saved their lives by teaching them how to plant and giving them seed or they would have starved. They repaid him with Thanksgiving. Do I have it wrong?

How do we separate the wheat (truth) from the chaff (falsehood)?

Winnowing is tossing the mix into the air and letting the wind carry the chaff away, leaving the grain.  Let's toss these stories into the air and let the wind carry away the false ones. Success at the cost of entire peoples peppers human history and prehistory. Might is right ruled the land until we could become ethical creatures. Beings who could walk in another man's shoes.

How do you determine which stories are true and which are not?

Painting by Jean-Francois Millet

Fire sweeps the land in great swaths.
A natural outcome for unnatural plants starved of water combined with summer lightning.

The Sonoran desert doesn't burn but the Sky Islands can.
Ecozones that shift as we climb into the mountains from the desert floor.
Blessed islands of cool, yet not as flame resistant as a barrel cactus or saguaro.

Photo by Frankie Lopez

Time out from our routines, like having a day off, helps us reset.

Hunter-gatherers didn't hunt or gather all the time. In fact, they had mostly free time.  Subsistence was never a full-time gig. Yet they didn't live long. Farming and land ownership started the race for more. A hunter-gatherer cannot use more than she can carry.  The race for more lead us to where we are currently. Each of us trying to get ahead (whatever that means..).

Our minds need to wander. They need emptiness now and again. Free to follow any stray wisps of wondering. Many computer programming problems are solved in the shower. Stepping back from the task at hand gives the mind free reign to see things in a new light and often a solution emerges from shadow.

When was the last time you stopped to wander? To muse? To reflect? To appreciate the simple beauty of each rock, flower, or wild animal?

Photo by Nick Dunlap

I'm a runner. When things go badly, I am not one to stick around. I'm out of there.

But even death is no escape from my sufferings.

My sufferings emanate from me. When I hit the long sleep of death, I take the cause of my suffering with me: my self. So when I awake again, in birth, I will still suffer.

The only answer is to change my self. To eliminate the root of my suffering. To turn outward and think of more than myself. To stand and face that from which I run. Face it bravely.

"True happiness is not born of escape; ecstasy based on delusion does not continue. Enlightenment comes from seeing the truth, no matter how unpleasant it may be."  ~ Daisaku Ikeda, "Life"

Photo by Brian Metzler

The gift of rain graces my desert home.

Greenery appears on dead-stick limbs.

Sunset turns everything orange.

A riot of color in a desert brought back to life.

Taking things to their limit.
Stretching them as far as they will go.
How can we know the edges if we don't explore each extreme?

Not for the point of staying at the extreme,
But more of discovery of the space.
Possibility lives at the edges.
How much can I improve my health? How strong can I become?
What body changes can I create by devoting 1 hour/day to exercise?
Our bodies weren't built to sit all day. They are optimized to move.

These are questions we can explore with curiosity and commitment. We can set up a target to guide our aim,

If you need ideas for which exercises, send me a note.  I have a large selection tailored to your needs.

Photo by Adam McCoid

Using fresh drinking water in our toilets makes no sense. What a waste of a valuable resource! Yet we see this as normal and our right.
Using fresh drinking water to water a lawn that shouldn't grow in the area where you live. Now you complain  about drought?
Man, in his hubris, alters the environment around him, and takes great pride in building dams and changing the landscape. Each time he falls short of understanding the intricacies of Nature. The careful balance between things.

Look at kudzu. Brought to the US from Japan and Southeast Asia, kudzu was planted to fight soil erosion. Now called the "vine that ate the South." Desert broom, tamarisk trees, tumbleweed: all choking natural environments. Invasives introduced by man who thought he could mold the land to his hand, but forgot about the delicate web of life. The checks and balances built into the system by Mother Nature herself. Each thing having a predator or a way to keep it in check.

Early morning walk this morning after a tremendous thunderstorm last night.
I met two neighbors talking on the road: one in his 80's and the other in his 90's.
New-to-me neighbors, they wanted to chat. Both men. Men seem to be living long here.

The younger one said, "You are younger than us. When you get to be our age, you spend 90% of your time taking care of your health."
It gave me pause and stoked the fire of my curiosity.
Does percentage of time spent on your health correlate with age?
A 90-year-old spends 90% of his time bolstering his body. Does a 20-year-old spend 20% or 10%?
It seems a baby spends 100% of his time on his health.
More questions than answers here. Good fruit for my wonderings for the next while.

A fortunate encounter with neighbors who have lived here long before me.

How much time do you spend on your health?

Photo by Mr.Autthaporn Pradidpong