Monday, January 31, 2011


Two workers at the post office today were wearing hoop earrings, and when I saw them, I thought of this photo.

Sunday, January 30, 2011


Another point that Boroditsky brings up in her article is that 'representations of time vary in many...ways around the world.' She compares English speakers to those in the Andes who speak Aymara. People who speak English see the future 'ahead' and the past 'behind', to the point that when we speak of the future we lean slightly forward, and when speaking of the past we lean back. Those who speak Aymara express the future as behind and the past ahead, and lean their bodies accordingly.

I keep thinking about that because I find it hard to grasp. Does it mean when the Aymara speakers are walking, they have a sense of moving toward the past?


*(referenced in yesterday's post about how language shapes our perception of reality)

Saturday, January 29, 2011


from 'How Language Shapes Thought'
by Lera Boroditsky
Scientific American
February 2011

'I am standing next to a five year-old girl in Pormpuraaw, a small Aboriginal community on the western edge of Cape York in northern Australia. When I ask her to point north, she points precisely and without hesitation. My compass says she is right. Later, back in a lecture hall at Stanford University, I make the same request of an audience of distinguished scholars - winners of science medals and genius prizes...I ask them to close their eyes (so they don't cheat) and point north. Many refuse; they do not know the answer. Those who do point take a while to think about it and then aim in all possible directions. I have repeated this exercise at Harvard and Princeton and in Moscow, London, and Beijing, always with the same results...

'Unlike English, the Kuuk Thaayorre language spoken in Pormpuraaw does not use relative spatial terms such as left and right. Rather Kuuk Thaayorre speakers talk in terms of absolute cardinal directions (north, south, east, west, and so forth)...This means one ends up saying things like "the cup is southeast of the plate" or "the boy standing to the south of Mary is my brother." In Pormpuraaw, one must always stay oriented, just to be able to speak properly.'

'The languages we speak affect our perceptions of the world.'

Friday, January 28, 2011


The pasta was a bit more tender than al dente,
which is perfect to my taste,
and neither bland nor too salty.
The to-do list was by-passed.
A black cat walked across Northwest Park.
The mail box was empty.
Some days are so strange.
I cling to the ordinary
hoping I still belong
to the human tribe -
my waking life is more dream-like
than a dream.

Thursday, January 27, 2011


Some years back on a tennis court, we did a set of laughing yoga, with a lot of ha ha ha ha ha’s. The other night, we did snoring yoga, and then breath of fire with our tongues extended out.

An exercise we did that I’ve used often on my own is called 'Sa Ta Na Ma'. Though in class it's a seated meditation, I tend to use it when walking. It's calming, very nice when stressed or looking for courage.

If anyone remembers the TV show ‘Dr. Kildare’, there was a weekly opening hospital scene where a man speaks dramatically: ‘Birth. Life. Death. Infinity.’

Well, for the yoga exercise, you breathe in. Then you breathe out saying ‘Sa Ta Na Ma’ as you touch the tip of each finger to the tip of your thumb on the same hand, using either or both hands. You breathe in again, and repeat. 'Sa Ta Na Ma.'

Birth. Life. Death. Infinity.


Sunday, January 23, 2011


Our team arrived early for a soccer game. One of the guys had an old football, and for half an hour, they goofed around, running the ball, tackling each other, rolling around in the grass until it was time for the more serious soccer competition to begin against an opposing group of players. Our team got off to a great, relaxed start, in excellent synchrony with each other, no need to warm up or find their rhythm. The fun, unrelated play had united them into a powerful, efficient team free from starting-game nerves.

Saturday, January 22, 2011


I was driving west through Arkansas, stopped for gas at an ordinary station. The air was very cold, pungent with the scent of fuel. Snow, fat wet flakes, whirled in the wind, sticking to my coat and gloves, collecting fast on the streets, and it looked like a not-so-ordinary holiday taking shape. People inside were talking, in no hurry to leave.

How often does a gas station feel like shelter from the cold? Like all that is real and warm and lit is inside the little store with its shelves of packaged nuts and chips, and outside, all is wilderness?

The real became surreal, the coffee 53 cents. Two young parents carried in their school-aged children, barefoot and in pajamas. I drove back onto the freeway, heading west. Twenty minutes later, the sun was shining. There was no wind. There was no snow.

Friday, January 21, 2011





What happened then,
what happened there,
and omg
what happens next.
The mind is whirring,
fear is welling
until...
we follow the call
out the door.
Pay attention.
Our shoes crunch against gravel.
A plane flies west in the cold fading sky.
A woman laughs from the wooded slope.
A ball veers off the rim of the goal.
The water of the pond trembles.
We surrender
to the moment,
to each other
in this moment.
The noise of past and future
grows still.

Wednesday, January 19, 2011

our spherical satellite
melts into undulating ribbons
of unseen energy and time
even as we stand know and see
this tangible earth
sifting between our toes -
only love matters

Monday, January 17, 2011

All I'm saying is simply this, that all life is interrelated, that somehow we're caught in an inescapable network of mutuality tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly affects all indirectly. For some strange reason, I can never be what I ought to be until you are what you ought to be. You can never be what you ought to be until I am what I ought to be. This is the interrelated structure of reality.

— Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.


Let the nation know the meaning of our numbers. We are not a pressure group. We are not an organization. We are not a mob. We are the advance guard of a massive moral revolution that is not confined to the Negro, nor is it confined to civil rights, for our white allies know that they are not free while we are not.

- A. Philip Randolph

Sunday, January 16, 2011

Fractals are an example of exquisite design without planning. The repeated emission of something that seems random results in something that has clear organization on a larger scale.

There are writers who work with detailed outlines mapping the course of their stories. There are those who start with a single sentence, and venture forward with no plan at all.

There are sculptors and architects and scientists and knitters who have a vision they hope to achieve, with every step and necessary supply anticipated. There are those who make the first stitch blindly.

I knew a man who never learned more than a single word, who seemed to see people in the same light as he saw a chair or a tree. Give him a pencil, and he could produce detailed, accurate drawings. He came back from a doctor's appointment once clutching a drawing he had done in the waiting room. The drawing was of a window pane in the door to the examining rooms. He had carefully reproduced the diamond pattern imbedded in the safety glass.

What he chose to draw helped me to see differently. Out of the busy activity around him, something in him was drawn to attend to and reflect through his pencil and paper that single window.

We benefit from the planners among us, and from those who seem to exist entirely in the moment.

Friday, January 14, 2011

A daytime moon
hangs above the icy parking lot.
A man shrunken and bent
inches his walker
across the lane,
snow banked in low mounds
against the curb of the sidewalk.
Cars murmur in pause,
waiting, observing.
This is old.
This is disability.
This is a human being.
Most of all,
this is a man.

Wednesday, January 12, 2011

late this afternoon
past fields dusted with snow
I drove through Italy, Texas
a small town in winter
its jewel colors
radiating gently
a light beyond words

Tuesday, January 11, 2011








It's a skill that's trained in Shintaido, to be aware of another's intention just before he or she acts. Marvin read me every time. I'd say this cat passes the test.

Monday, January 10, 2011

I'm told he's a stray, but he looks healthy and well-fed and he's certainly friendly. The first name that came to mind when I met him in the parking lot was Marvin and so Marvin he is, at least when I'm around. These photos look pretty pathetic, but they illustrate one of Marvin's talents. Although he comes close, even chases me, to be petted, when he is sitting still and I quietly press the button of my camera to snag a photo, he reads my impulse and dodges.

I've been taking pictures for a long time, and I've never met a cat, dog or baby who can so quickly whip his body away from the lens three times in a row. (And oddly, for over 45 minutes I've tried to upload the above-mentioned pics to blogger.com without success. He's still dodging exposure! I'll try posting them in the morning.)

Sunday, January 9, 2011


riding in
on a north wind
the rain smelled
wild and poignant -
now the creek
flows once again,
the healing song
of night waters

Thursday, January 6, 2011

Wednesday, January 5, 2011





Pecan trees are scattered throughout the Texas neighborhood where I live. They are reported to be the only tree nut native to America. During recent walks, I've picked up quite a collection that have fallen into the streets. What has always fascinated me about the pecan trees where I grew up in Louisiana, and now the ones here, is that each tree produces its own signature pecan. You can see in the photos how much variation there is just among the trees within a few blocks of each other. The nuts on any one tree tend to be very similar to each other, but each tree has its own distinctive brand, its own genetic code.

Tonight, I taste-tested a couple. The flavor varies with size and shape. The big, paper-shelled was less sweet, but was complex, with some bitterness in after taste. One of the smaller, rounder pecans had a sweet, resonant flavor.

There is something highly satisfying about picking pecans, something that goes way back to our hunting and gathering days, I suspect, when food was more valuable than coins. Abundant, nutritious, tasty, filling food in their own storage compartments that keep them fresh over time. Food that just falls into your path! What treasure.

And if that weren't enough, there's evidence to suggest pecans help lower cholesterol, maintain a healthy weight, and protect brain health.

Tuesday, January 4, 2011


like an astronaut
you can ride a
fuel burning rocket,
or you can
sail into space
on the note of a song

Monday, January 3, 2011


Give me words
and the reply came
in the grinding of a disposal
the trembling of a candle
the murmur of a TV
through a thin apartment wall

it's a cold night
and a downy woodpecker
finds warmth in the
hollow of a broken tree limb

a circle of narrow shoulders
bears the weight of the world
if only for an hour

carvings far from their African origins
confuse intruders -
they cannot sense their target
and wander away in the dark
stumbling on the roots of oaks

molten heat flows through my chest -
words come -
dim reflections
of the powerful shift of tides
the volcanic melting of ice

Sunday, January 2, 2011


Late this afternoon, nested in the middle of the neighborhood, we found a one-acre cemetery that dates back to 1845. Dry, spindly trees fragment the light that strikes the stones. An informal description on the internet surmises about 100 people are buried there, with only half the gravestones still in place. Some of the markers are broken, illegible. It's a family cemetery where people might engrave a stone 'Aunt Jane' with an expectation that people will know who Aunt Jane was, and who the niece or nephew was that procured the stone. But, like with Twitter, we must now recreate their stories from a few syllables, a date.

The photo above, which I took earlier in the day, contrasts with the cemetery. It's a fair depiction of how life can present itself in this century, a fractured kaleidoscope of imagery, noise, distraction, opportunity, brand names, and pavement; beauty in churning chaos.

Perhaps a mile away, the cemetery sits, earthy, not clamoring for attention.

Saturday, January 1, 2011


Louis Black has been blogging for the Austin Chronicle since long before there was any such creature as a blog. His commentary is thoughtful, and often touches both the lyrical and concrete aspects of life, the feelings and the straightforward scoop.

Here are a couple of quotes from this week’s offering:

‘No matter how good you get at whatever it is you do, if you care about it, the stress never really lessens. The insane edges smooth out, the monstrous fears that eat your gut and puke out nightmares all night shift to a much lower gear, but caring means you never relax…’

That said, he adds,

‘One should love and take pride in his or her work, but it’s best not to let it kill you.’