Beauty

My Friend Bill over at Zaadz posted a blog entry this morning with a pointer to some incredible photographs. I know you will be touched by them too!

Us

I’m alone. No I’m not. Yes I am And No, I’m not. You’re here with me. And yet I’m sitting here alone. I’m really not much without you. Sit here with me, will ya? It’s quiet. I’ll hold you, all of you, everyone of you.

Did you know?

This morning, while reading an online article at The New York Times website I doubled-clicked on a word (I was going to copy it and paste it into an online dictionary so I could get it's definition). Turns out, it looks like every word in that article, and I checked another one too, was hyperlinked to either an online dictionary, or for a person's name, to more information about that person. What a nice feature. I know you read The Times.

Bowl of Soup?

I saw on the internet (where according to my girl Cathy, I pretty much live!) that Elton John turned 60. I thought about my friend Maze for a few minutes. What a nice, ripe-like-a-perfect peach age I thought. But, back to Elton. I thought about his music, how it has been such a part of my soul and heart, body and mind. I went to see him in Mobile, Alabama in 1973 while I was at technical training for the Air Force in Biloxi Mississippi. I think he was getting ready to, or had just released Goodbye Yellow Brick Road. I was way too young and baptist to get all I could have from that scene! One of my first albums (records) that I bought of Elton's was Tumbleweed Connection. I could go on about memories from several of the songs there, but I'll go with the Talking Old Soldiers for the moment. The first verse: Why hello, say can I buy you another glass of beer Well thanks a lot that's kind of you, it's nice to know you care These days there's so much going on No one seems to want to know I may be just an old soldier to some But I know how it feels to grow old The sadness and beauty of life come through in these words and the way Elton sings them. Getting older, caring, so much going on. There is such a timeless theme here for us all I reckon. On days like today, I just go through my routine, enjoying the walk, the school homework, the calls from my kids and wife. The beautiful spring weather. And then, a bowl of homemade vegetable soup. Next, maybe a little quiet, out on the patio, just wanting to know about those I love. And thankful for Elton, 60 years on!

This Damn War

I hardly (and I mean, never) watch TV anymore. This past Sunday nite, I wanted to sit in front of the tube and eat my dinner. I turned on PBS and they had on a concert, not my thing (well if it was Earth Wind & Fire it may have been!). I switched to CBS, remembering that the show 60 Minutes is on around dinner time. Sure enough it was. I caught most of this interview with a GI.

Now, this entire horrendous story aside, and all you can say about what “they” did, I became more enraged than ever at this war! Mostly though on Sunday evening, I was thinking about these YOUNG people who are over there in this pressure-cooker situation, where bad shit happens all the time. How much sacrifice they make. How much pain they suffer. And I keep getting the math wrong because it doesn't add up for me! It terrifies me that I still don't know what the fuck we're doing over there, and the answers I come up with are indeed terrifying. I won't go down the lane of how poorly I think of our president right now, how ashamed I am of what our country has done on his watch (which I do believe, is our watch).

What I want to say and do, is that EVERY SINGLE ONE of these kids we send over there should be welcomed home with as much respect as we can. They're young, that's why they go. When I was 20, I would have went and did what the old guys told me to do, didn't think much about the “bigger” picture. That's why we get um to go. I'm almost 52, I need a little connection of the damn DOTS before I can get up and make killing happen. They wouldn't have me now. Good thing. So, here's this guy, and his squad, something unbelievably horrifying happened, fighting in a war that WE sent him to, doing the best he can. He breaks, and it's complete tragedy. Now, he's here. I wanted to hug him and tell him that it's OK; it's not your fault. It's not your fault. It's all of our faults, every one of us who doesn't do something, anything we can, to stop this damn war.

Gardening

This week I tore down the two hand-made 4X8 garden boxes I made a couple of years ago. Between my piss-poor gardening skills, the Sonoran Desert climate, and a cat named Boo Boo, who is always on the lookout for some fresh dirt, I gave up! Here they are at about their best! My granddaughter Jordyn helped me with the decorating. I probably have over a thousand dollars worth of dirt, materials, and labor in that little garden. It's especially sad since I also took all the training to become a Master Gardner. I'm ashamed! We never, ever had anything really good to eat from it! I moved all the dirt into a new box for Boo Boo, should last her a while. So, I'm onto the next plan. I'm only into about $100 or so, but I'm gonna do the Garden Patch! And no, it's not for people who are trying to quit gardening!

I'm looking forward to not having to try! So far Cathy has not offered any resistance to my new scheme, though the good Lord knows she has every right!

And just in case that don't work out, we also joined a local co-op farm, where we'll get a bag full of fresh, local, organic vegetables every week.

Did It!

Pass Mountain or

The Tip of the IceBerg

Yesterday, my friend Yubus and I made it around Pass Mountain. Finally. The longest 7.1 mile hike in the history of hiking trails. It took us 4.5 hours. The flyer they provide at the park says count on between 4 and 5 hours, hmmmm, once again, read the directions. Anyway, we weren't watching the clock and kept thinking we were gonna be around this puppy soon, and we were wrong for a lot longer than we were right about that! As always, it feels so good to be done, having accomplished the goal. I was thinking that I can't wait to do this when I'm in shape for it!!! The back (east) side of the mountain is gorgeous and away from the city so to speak, full of Sonoran Desert in all its glory.

We got back to the car around 6PM and were able to have a couple of beers and snacks and watch the sun go down. Out there the desert teases you into thinking you can take all of it home with you in a photograph, but it's a tease. Like the picture of the mountain, it's just the tip of the iceberg really, there's so much more thankfully. It's still all out there, a bit of it came home in our soul, on our skin, and even less inside my camera. Even the blog posting starts to seem like a cheap shot at describing a day with your best friend, in the desert, the magnificent desert.

A sweet soul

Your sweet soul left us yesterday. I wonder if another has already come to take your place, yesterday, today, or maybe soon. There are so few chances we get, so rare, to be with a person like you. And now that you are gone I feel so inadequate, so much more could I have given. How do I get better at giving now? What do I give you now, my best, what is that? What did I learn from you, how has knowing you changed me? How do you keep on being with me, right this minute? We're closer now. I am full of you. This bitter-sweet feeling in and around my heart, I'm alive, it hurts, and you're gone. To never complain, to enjoy fresh air, sunshine, food, the touch of my wife, my health, my sight. To be grateful for my family, my job, my friends, for the opportunities to serve. For books and movies, for learning and loving, to be able to do these things and enjoy them completely. For poetry, for women, beautiful things, my Mom, to be ever grateful and reverent for these life things. When you were here it was easy for me to be mad at how unfair it was for you. I'm not sure you were ever angry at it. You had every reason to be bitter and angry at how it was for your body. But you weren't. Oh my friend, how I want to say this right for you. And now you are done with that body and all its pain. How free you must be. No more of that for you my friend. These things are so hard to understand. I'm not interested in a quick, canned, or easy answer. For me, better to let this all be what it is, this life, pain, suffering and death thing. It's too hard sometimes, and harder than even that this time. It's almost impossible to find some good in how it went for you, it's a stretch, a belief in something greater than what we see, because what we saw was not so great. And so now we all go with this, this next part, where you're out of our lives, but more so than ever in our hearts. Time will probably have its way with our sadness, it has a kindness that way I guess. I'm sure that if there is anything that love can do for you right now, you are in the best of care. All the love you gave is still alive in all of us and I believe it's now yours and ours to keep forever and ever.

The Examined Life

I just finished my second read of Diet For A New America by John Robbins. For the past several years I've been heading towards a vegetarian diet for a couple of reasons: Health and spiritual. This book brings home-the-bacon so-to-speak for a third reason, our environment. I'm not all the way there yet (I was raised with 3 meals a day, and all 3 had some kind of animal product going on!). Our society is so-damn-meat based, everywhere, all the time it seems. But I'm closer than ever, and have lots of days in a row most of the time, when an animal does not have to die, or part of a forest does not have to be torn down, or gallons and gallons of our precious water is not used, for me to have a juicy rib-eye steak or some eggs with my butter and toast! Not all the way, but closer. (The book is dated, 1987, but the story keeps sounding true.) John Robbins is from the Baskin & Robbins clan. He left that clan and all that could have been his because of his passion for animals, our health, and our planet. For me that is good enough credentials. He certainly could have made a lot more money, had it a lot easier, had he stayed the easy, standard course. It seems to me that when you get a chance to learn about something, that you should stop, and learn. If it makes sense to you, then you do learn. To keep your head in the sand, to not at least inquire and see if something sounds right for you, for some old-school, un-examined reason, is actually unbelievable to me. I've seen this now and I cannot continue to pretend that it's OK to keep acting the same way as always, before I saw it. I haven't always known this, but I do now. John goes into so much about how wonderful animals are (got me reading W.H. Hudson), and the downside of what we've done in the last 30 years or so with our factory farming (it's not the same thing anymore, nothing like it!). And the impact of this on our health, and actually on our souls. But I won't work all those aspects right now. I think the environmental reasons are powerful enough for all of us . Here's some "facts" from the book. An American scientist, David Pimental, calculates that if the whole world were to eat according to U.S. agricultural practices, the planet's entire petroleum reserves would be exhausted in 13 years. A detailed 1978 study sponsored by the Departments of Interior and Commerce produced startling figures showing that the value of raw materials consumed to produce food from livestock is greater than the value of all oil, gas, and coal consumed in this country. The same study revealed the equally startling fact that the production of meats, dairy products and eggs account for one-third of the total amount of all raw materials used for all purposes in the United States. Animal wastes in the U.S. account for more than ten times as much water pollution as the total amount attributable to the entire human population! The livestock of the U.S. produce twenty times as much excrement as the entire human population of the country. (It's mostly going into our streams and rivers). Every 24 hours the animals destined for America's dinner tables produce 20 billion pounds of waste. That is 240,000 pounds of excrement a second. All in all, economists calculate that the three-state area (Oregon, Washington and Idaho) loses 17 billion kilowatt hours of electricity a year to the gluttonous water use of livestock production. That's enough to light every house in the entire nation for a month-and-a-half. In the three-state area, meat production accounts for over half the water consumed in the entire region. These areas still have to import most of their meat. If the cost of water needed to produce a pound of meat where not subsidized (by our government), the cheapest hamburger meat would cost more than $35 a pound. The water that goes into a 1,000 pound steer would float a destroyer. It takes up to a hundred times more water to produce a pound of meat than it does a pound of wheat. To produce a day's food for one meat-eater takes over 4,000 gallons of water; for a lacto-ovo vegetarian, only 1,200 gallons; for a pure vegetarian, only 300 gallons. To produce a single pound of meat takes an average of 2,500 gallons of water - as much as a typical family uses for all its combined household purposes in a month. A third of Costa Rica is today given over to cattle-raising. The entire destruction of the rain forests in Central America is a complete crime to our planet. We're loosing species after species for the Big Mac! For every person who switches to a pure vegetarian diet, an acre of trees is spared every year. The livestock population of the U.S. today consumes enough grain and soybeans to feed over five times the entire human population of the country. We feed these animals over 80% of the corn we grow, and over 95% of the oats. The National Diary Council with the government's permission, (is still) the largest and most important provider of nutrition education in the country. That the Diary Council can still convincingly promote saturated fat and cholesterol-rich diets reflects the credibility it built in the days before the link between these elements and atherosclerosis was known. This is why most of us can't quite get over the protein myth, and the idea that milk is good for us (our kindegarten teacher told us so!). Of all the myths from this whole animal-consumption game, the milk one has always cracked me up. I mean, I'm an adult human being, and milk from a cow, for it's baby, is good for me? Then, what we do to that cow to get that milk? Wow. I switched to Soy, gladly. These are the guys that created the protein myth. Get over it! In the book, these scientists are working as hard as they can to create a diet that is low in protein. The only way they could do it would be for you to eat absoltute SHIT for food every day. It's impossible to not get enough protein from vegetables, grains and fruits, impossible. Get over it! A good, reliable set of bowels is worth more to a man than any quantity of brains. (Henry Wheeler Shaw) We aren't what we eat. We are what we don't shit. (Hugh Romney)

I figured it all out!

This morning on my walk, I was noticing how tight I've been wrapped lately (OK, mostly forever). I was asking myself what was I trying to figure out, what was I looking for? I got this sense that to be done looking would be nice, so why not try that! What I figured out (remembered) was that there is nothing to figure out. Like, enjoy your walk, go eat your vegetable soup, brush your teeth, take a nap, and enjoy yourself. Quit making a big friggin deal out of everything, this search. I remembered a line from A Course In Miracles, something like "the ego's goal is to seek but never find". Yikes! I'm surrounded by beauty, and wonderful family and friends, is that not enough? Sometimes, apparently not for mister smarty pants!!! (I somehow knew that smarty wasn't gonna pass the spell check!). Anyway, in case you guys need some help with anything, just ask. I got it ALL figured out today!

Spring, Almost

Spring is almost here in Phoenix. Almost. We get it earlier than lots of places. Supposedly going to be in the 80s this week, sorry about that. Walking around my little urban space gets me thinking about growth. The Mulberry tree is starting to push out new growth, can't help but wonder about my own, how it comes, how it looks on me, how I've grown. How we all grow. How life keeps going. The Mulberry tree is no doubt, the oldest living resident plant in our backyard. And each year about this time, it starts over in ways. Reminds me that I can all start over each day, hell, each moment if I'm paying attention! Also reminds me that more and more, I'm the oldest thing in the room.

Last year, and years before, birds built their nests here and had their young. Not so sure this year what we'll find, we now have the boo boo. Boo Boo's real name is Baluh, or something, but mostly we call her Booby, Boo Boo or The Boob! Anway, she is pretty much in charge of the Mulberry Tree. And while I'm on the subject of the Boob, she's starting to worry the missus and me, letting her hair grow long and staying out all nite. Little rebel!

This cactus here is one of my favorites. It took a long time to get into a round of growing, and since then has had a couple of major spurts, getting bigger each time. I like that, it gets stronger and greener each time. I've been getting bigger too. Stronger and greener, well. I am exercising more, and we do recycle. Another thing this plant reminds me of is that I'm getting a little too big for my britches!

This guy probably needs to be moved into the straight-on-earth. Like some days, it starts out pretty good, then there's that long part, probably at the office, followed by a little dinner and a movie, and then the crowning little nite-nite feeling at the end.

I think this beauty reminds me of lots of days in my life. Mostly moving towards "up" I reckon, but not truly staight up! You can also see the part of the day right after dinner on this one, where the cocktails kind of kick in! This guy is another fun plant for me. You can see some of the "base" that it mostly really grew from, a very wonderful blast of power. I like it that these guys just sit out in my back yard all day and nite, steady beauty. I have a lot of hope for this guy. It's been through a lot. This kind of cactus can get huge and messy, no doubt planted in the wrong place once it decides that's where it wants to go. But it is hanging on. Here we are, all over the place. Probably should get this guy into the real dirt too. I put that big pad in there a while back, and it seems to be content, with its 4 kids and 2 grand kids, right where it is.

So, another Spring is here. What a wonderful time. You wanna see what I got out front?