born

... in the belly of a star.

one more

blue moon

It is a strange coincidence that I dragged The Trinity Sessions out of the bottom of a very old pile and stuck it in my CD player this morning.

consider this

light

I tried to write about taking pictures of light ... to explain that I found I could only define lightness by its relationship with darkness ... inadvertently suggesting that I might find other applications for my loose theory.  But I made it too confusing.  Maybe the pictures are enough.

resolved

I am far more comfortable taking pictures than I am being a subject in one.  I always seem to be able to see that awkward feeling in every image of myself, so this caught me by surprise today.  I found it in my photos from a stream of pictures taken by my mom earlier this summer.  Even though it's practically painful to share, I'm going to do it anyway because I like it.  I like it because my mom took it and I like it because I look like I am at that kind of peace that I'm always searching for.  I am spared, at least momentarily, from self-consciousness -- not living from the outside looking critically on. Instead, living freely, from the inside out.

“Yet still there are those special secret moments in our lives, when we smile unexpectedly –when all our forces are resolved. … When we know those moments, when we smile, when we let go, when we are not on guard at all — these are the moments when our most important forces show themselves.”
--Christopher Alexander

Thanks, Mama.  This reminds me of all of my years of irrepressible leaping and twirling  -- or as I like to call it, dancing:).

found

Soon the waves and I found the rolling tide...

guilty

just got busted for indulging in weak moment of sentimentality.  might as well share my shame.

salutation

O generation of the thoroughly smug
  and thoroughly uncomfortable,
I have seen fishermen picnicking in the sun,
I have seen them with untidy families,
I have seen their smiles full of teeth
  and heard ungainly laughter.
And I am happier than you are,
And they were happier than I am;
And the fish swim in the lake
  and do not even own clothing.
--Ezra Pound

rise

Monday

 Tuesday

 Wednesday

 Thursday

 Friday

Five mornings, within five minutes and five miles (well more like two).  I'm happy to find my route -- my routine -- right here where it has always been.  I've been away but return to find myself welcomed right back into the waiting and patient joy.  

can't complain

...racing the moon
(as it hangs over my right shoulder)

pond

late August:

we have fun

A more lively variation on my current "longing for the sea" theme:

A fun question for the first day of school ... off to count the reasons.

discover

In a strange limbo today.  I've done as much preparation and planning I'm going to do. There's not enough time left to play.  Just enough for some waiting -- with a bit to spare for a quick detour.

Pictures above are some local examples of park structures completed under Roosevelt's New Deal (with a splash of sky for good measure).  I've been admiring the CCC work in the national parks and was recently informed that we had some masonry structures nearby in a place I'd almost forgotten about.  The park itself sits on top of a uniquely high and steep hill.  Winding my way up the sharp curving roads and finding the stone shelters at the top made me feel like I was someplace altogether different.


Franklin Roosevelt at CCC camp, Shenandoah National Park, 1933

From Harpers Ferry, National Park Service Historic Photograph Collection

with light in my head

And I know I will be loosened

from the bonds that hold me fast

and the chains all around me

will fall away at last

familiar

Firchau, Heaven, 2012

The picture must be... a revelation, an unexpected and unprecedented resolution of an eternally familiar need. 
--Mark Rothko

Thanks Rob.

high summer

This high summer we love will pour its light

the fields grown rich and ragged in one strong moment

then before we're ready will crash into autumn

with a violence we can't accept

a bounty we can't forgive

Night frost will strike when the noons are warm

the pumpkins wildly growing         the green tomatoes

straining huge on the vines

queen anne and blackeyed susan will straggle rusty

as milkweed stakes her claim

she who will stand at last         dark sticks barely rising

up through the snow             her testament of continuation

We'll dream of a longer summer

but this is the one we have:

I lay my sunburnt hand

on your table: this is the time we have

--Adrienne Rich

train song

sometimes

it takes a while to get it:

Well it's all right, riding around in the breeze
Well it's all right, if you live the life you please
Well it's all right, even if the sun don't shine
Well it's all right, were going to the end of the line...

Update:  slightly troubled by the "has your artificial hip failed?" pop-up...
Update#2:  George is my favorite Beatle.

wish

nothing more.  nothing less.  only this.  

rise

If water derives lucidity from stillness, how much more the faculties of the mind! The mind of the sage, being in repose, becomes the mirror of the universe, the speculum of all creation.
Chuang Tzu

start

The Beginner’s Manifesto:

1. The hardest step is the first one.
2. It’s also the smallest, and often the simplest.
3. Momentum is more powerful that we realize. But the snowball won’t roll unless you give the first push.
4. It’s hard to start, but it’s even harder to stop once we’ve started.
5. Start something small every day. Watch them pile up.
6. Choosing not to start is choosing to fail.
7. Find a reason that makes it worth it.
8. What will happen if you don’t begin? What might you miss?
9. Make the first step so small it’d be impossible not to take.
10. The only thing standing between dreaming and beginning, is you.
11. Start first. Think later.
12. If you don’t start, nothing else matters.
13. Most of the fear comes from anticipating the start.
14. Most of the fear disappears once you begin.
15. Don’t leave the sight of an idea without doing one thing to get it closer to reality.
16. Say no to something that doesn’t matter, so you can start one thing that does.
17. Possibility cannot live until you begin.
18. If you don’t start, you can’t finish.
19. Starting is what builds a bridge, creates a business, loses 100 pounds, writes a best-seller. Starting does it all.
20. Starting is what changes the world. It’s the only thing that ever has.
21. Everything starts by starting. When is now a good time?

Thanks, Live Your Legend

hike your own hike*

Fighting rising panic, I throw myself into tall grass, pleading with gravity and making deals with blue sky.  Cicada songs rise like breath that I can feel in my chest and throat.  These days, precious few days, my hair hangs loose in a tangle of leaves and bits of twigs and dreams.  Long days filled with flights of inexorable wanderlust punctuated by tides and trees, storms of lightning and wind, streaking, streaming stars, rocky cliffs, mountains, bears, snakes, and wide golden eyes considering me quietly from perches in the night. 

I joke that I have to be dragged back kicking and screaming but it's just barely a joke.  Cool days and nights, early leaves with color, oaks dropping acorns, all indisputable evidence that these days that owe their substance and mystery to spontaneity and wildness are coming to a swift end.  There is never a thing I can do to prepare myself for the loss of freedom.  It will be replaced by the security of routine, the comforts of home ... and dreams and anticipation of next summer.  

*Thanks to "Ava", and to "True Lax God," for leaving these sound bits of wisdom in the trail register at Byrd's Nest No.Three.  They kept me company in my thoughts for many AT miles and the many more since.