This Makes No Sense At All

I don't spend a lot of time reflecting. My usual focus is now, today, and the near future. However, recently I had this flash of insight - maybe inspired by talk of new year's resolutions (something I don't do). I've heard people express the idea that life is a process of maintenance. This is another view of life. I think for men more than women, and probably for the quiet more than the gregarious, on looking back, life can be seen as a series of separations. As we move from childhood through school, through various employers, we are making new friends, but we are also leaving old ones behind. From our earliest childhood days we realize that people we know die. How we deal with these separations is important. There has to be an acceptance that separations are a part of life. Otherwise the weight of these cumulative separations is a path to depression. I find that viewing separation as a natural consequence of living allows me to see it as a life experience, but not cr...

One foggy morning following some rainy days, I walked up to the Sibley labyrinth, which has a rainy season pond. As I walked around the corner to where the labyrinth came into sight, there was a stunning chorus of frog voices coming from the pond. The fog was just lifting, and patches of sunlight were hitting the pond. I'd been there many times before, and never heard anything other than a few peeps from the frog population. Of course I didn't have my camera or any way to record it, so I came back every morning for four days. Each day was windy and beautiful, but zero frog sounds. Finally I came back one rainy morning and got the sounds again, along with some clips of newts doing their newt business. I put it all on this video.

We were strolling near the cathedral, late at night, when we heard voices singing in the distance. Walking towards the sound, we rounded the corner of the cathedral onto the broad plaza that faces the main entrance with the double staircase. On the far side of the plaza stood a small group of people, watching a group of brightly dressed singers. We crossed over and joined the crowd, watching enthralled for thirty minutes or so, capturing a moment on video. Hit play symbol below image to hear. Wait, there's more. After we got one of their cds, and crossed the plaza once more to get back to our lodging, we met a solitary man on the other side of the plaza from the singers, but dressed in the same colorful outfit, and with an arm full of records, cds and books. We told him we had already had a cd, but he went on to explain that the group we heard were fakes - just professional musicians, not the authentic musicians that he represented. His group only played in the wint...

In the political spectrum, I am an environmental bigot. If it improves my hiking experience, I'm for it, if it harms it, I'm against it. If I have to judge something on a broader basis, my standard would whether or not it extends the "age of mammals" (as in "age of dinosaurs"). I live about two miles from Berkeley, Ca so don't hear a lot of differing opinions. I do hear a fair amount about evil in the white house. In the online forums I see rants from the right and the left. From the radio, I hear Dr. Laura's absolutely certain judgments. I hear all these things and wonder how much is heartfelt and how much is theatre. Personal experience with friends, family and acquaintances on both sides of the political gulf tells me that caring people can come up with opposite opinions. My nature is to calm things down. You will never see me posting in all caps, as that would be SHOUTING. I do like to get my way. Being the oldest child, I have to fight falling...

Went to a benefit the other day. I'm just a hiker. Pretty selfish - get a lot of pleasure from using the wilderness but don't participate in it's preservation other than paying dues to some environmental organizations. Anyway, good friends were sponsoring this event for earthlight.org , so we went to hear Drew Dellinger read his environmental poetry. There was an opening act by Mary Ellen Hill "History of the Universe in Fifteen Minutes", which I recommend anyone to see if they get the opportunity. Her website is mehstories.com , but the reason I'm blogging about this event is that one of Drew's poems has been sticking with me, even though I try to ignore it: hieroglyphic stairway it's 3:23 in the morning and I'm awake because my great great grandchildren won't let me sleep my great great grandchildren ask me in dreams what did you do while the planet was plundered? what did you do when the earth was unraveling? surely you did something w...

Subtitle: The Meltdown Mechanism. After seeing a granddaughter thru the terrible twos, and now in the grownup fours, and currently seeing my grandson thru the not so terrible twos, not to mention some of my workplace experiences, I've got some experience with meltdowns. For a child the meltdown comes in a flash, gone in a flash, triggered by trivia to our minds but catastrophe to theirs. As they learn the ways of the world, these incidents usually diminish, perhaps due to the realization that there is a scale to incidents, and if a full response is invoked by a lesser incident, they have nothing left to show the impact of a larger incident. Since this is common to all children, maybe it's just a developmental change in brain chemistry: the first sign of the fight or flee triggering enzyme, and the young brain is shocked into instant response. What about those adults who have difficulty scaling responses? Some succeed - you only have to listen to talk radio to know it, but w...

No doubt about it. Consider your normal recreational backpack - hike six hours, find a beautiful campsite, hangout, bag a peak, read, swim, photograph, etc. Definitely a vacation. Active, yes, but if asked what you did for vacation, you answer "went backpacking" with no hesitation. Now, our recent 300 mile section hike on the PCT. Up at dawn - roughly 5:30. On the trail by 7. Gorp break at 9, PopTart break at 10:30, jerky, powerbar, dried fruit & cracker for lunch, Gorp breaks thru the afternoon & finally finding a suitable camp spot at 7pm. A dry camp of course. You only hit water once or twice a day, and rarely is it when you want to camp. So, on the last water, pump about 3 liters extra for supper and breakfast at the dry camp. Some days we might stop at five pm. On those days the thru-hikers will be going by, sometimes saying "stopping early?" as they go on to complete their 30+ mile day. So why do we do it? Because it feels so good to stop? Possibly ...