Saturday, July 31, 2010


In the world there is nothing more submissive and weak than water. Yet for attacking that which is hard and strong nothing can surpass it.
— Lao Tzu

Friday, July 30, 2010


The Greeks tell a story about a poor elderly couple, Baucis and Philemon, who take in two gods dressed as homeless traveling men. While the townfolk bolt their doors, the couple do their very best to make the men comfortable and at ease. The exchange brings out the noble in both the givers and the recipients of such tenderness.

A couple thousand years after Baucis and Philemon, the story comes to mind. There are still fragile people with no place to spend this night, and there are still people who see the god-like soul in every person, and do their best to treat every man and woman as a brother or sister.

The current issue of the local monthly called Street Spirit includes the following poem by Claire J. Baker called 'Found Among the Homeless':

There are many
so magnanimous
they can give any part
of themselves away
and still remain
angels
flowers
star stuff
grain


Claire Baker and Mary Rudge recently published a book of street poems that can be ordered through email:
maryrudgepoet@yahoo.com
or
clairejjbaker@yahoo.com

Thursday, July 29, 2010


There was music this week, two different bands who produced low, tender vocals without theatrics or abrupt dynamics. The men made challenging close harmonies sound effortless. Four selves, four voices, dissolved into one flow, a tranquil balance of love and detachment.

Wednesday, July 28, 2010





Even our shadows can sing...

Tuesday, July 27, 2010


I write and write.
So what? say the flowers,
flies and bees.
So what? I ask.

Monday, July 26, 2010


I’m walking walking -
barriers of bruised plastic
line the street
it’s growing late
everything aches
pavement unyielding
a cold wind stirring
in the gray intersection
of the smell of concrete
and impending nightfall -
no fear no self pity
just weary not thinking
when from my heart
I call your name
once twice
again again
and engine singing
there you are
there you are

Sunday, July 25, 2010






These photos were taken earlier this evening on Lake Merritt in Oakland.

Saturday, July 24, 2010





Friday, July 23, 2010


Bear does handstand
in the clear lake shallows
inviting dreamers to live

Thursday, July 22, 2010


Sunlight slanting
a certain way
I stop to stare at
street flowers
in flaming disarray
burning beacons
of the brevity of shining.

They change my life
or at least my afternoon -
why let errands
run my day?
I turn
and walk the other way -

Wednesday, July 21, 2010


The universe is ancient and enduring and goes on just fine whether we understand or not.

Joseph Campbell once offered an explanation of how this one sound contains everything:

Ohmmmm...

Tuesday, July 20, 2010



It’s an unusual picture in National Geographic this month. There's a tree in Tanzania, sort of dry looking and umbrella-shaped. A lion is in the crook of the trunk, her mouth open as though roaring or yawning in the direction of the camera. I say her because there is no mane, though perhaps it could be a juvenile lion. Behind her is a dead mammal, like a gazelle, draped on a branch. And high above the lion, there’s a leopard flying over the tree.

Spotted cat stretched out like Superman, blue sky, nothing else.

The story goes that the lion climbed the tree to steal the leopard’s fresh kill, and the leopard is hastily leaving the scene, deciding its dinner isn’t worth fighting for.

Monday, July 19, 2010


There was something of the AIDS Walk in San Francisco yesterday that reminded me of the Great Trunk Road in India described by Kipling, or the paths described by Chaucer in The Canterbury Tales in England from centuries past. People walking, talking, laughing, with babies and kids and dogs and grandparents, and stuff. A slice of humanity on the Tao, the Way, passing by the bands playing, the food for sale in little huts, a waterfall, some jitterbuggers. The destination yesterday was not so important as the travel together, the shared path because of a shared concern. I like to imagine the four dimensional crazy corkscrew trek we made, traveling forward for a few hours along the timeline, on a path in Golden Gate Park, on a circular spin of the earth, also circling around a star called the sun that is hurtling on a path through the universe. Though we ended up where we started in the park, we ended someplace altogether different in space and time. No doubt, we emerged in a different spot within as well, changed by the physical activity, and the sharing of the same thread with a few thousand others. For a short time, we were a phenomenon, with our many differences, a joining of intention and direction, forging forward on the spiraling way.



Donations toward education, prevention, treatment, and cure of this disease may be made through
aidswalk.net

Sunday, July 18, 2010


Three in three weeks. Each in parks. No Jewish weddings or anything like that. Two were left on picnic tables, and the third. Well. The wind blew the derby off an African American drummer as I approached today, and he flew up to catch it, and there was one on his head. It had been hiding under his hat.

I’m talking bout yarmulkes.

Saturday, July 17, 2010


The first Buddha statue I ever saw was during a Sunday family outing to Avery Island in Louisiana in the late 1960s. It’s housed in a glass pagoda structure on a little island within the gardens there. (Note that neither island is technically a true island, but a slight rise in elevation above the surrounding flat gulf terrain.) The land, the gardens, the Buddha belonged to the McIlhenny family, who produced the now famous Tabasco sauce there.

I’ve been back to Avery Island now and again, home to nutria, egrets, alligators and draping wisteria. Each time, a coolness and serenity seem to surround the statue, an oasis from the heat. The Buddha is reportedly over 800 years old, was shipped from Asia, spoils from a warlord altercation. It seemed sad to me it was so far from its home. But now I think perhaps it’s where it’s supposed to be. For many local visitors to the gardens, this Buddha may be the first and only one they ever see.

Buddha Speaks

Peacefully I rest
Upon this lagoon’s bank
As pale green bamboos
Sway above my throne.
Clouds of blossoms
Soften the sifted light
Falling golden and misty
Through the boughs above.
Long days of travel
Brought me from my home,
Yet I have known no hour of calmer rest
My thoughts are like
The swaying bamboos’ crest
Waved to and fro
Above the rippling stream
Clear and blue
As from a glorious dream

~ E A McIlhenny

The Buddha in the photo above is from my apartment building. Images of the Avery Island Buddha on Flickr and elsewhere can be found by googling ‘Avery Island Buddha’.

Friday, July 16, 2010




the paradox of meditation, of living with the focus of intent, and unselective awareness...

Thursday, July 15, 2010


As I approached Adeline, walking to BART for a ride to the city, pigeons soared above the street, a great opening in flight. Then, in the count of one second, they landed on a minaret atop a building.

It was as though with a click, their flight collapsed from covering easily a thousand square yards of sky, a great open hand, to landing all at once, a synchronized perching on a small structure, a closing fist.

It felt like watching all the galaxies and star clusters returning to a single point, or watching in reverse the film of an explosion, or collapsing a Bach melody to all the notes played at once. Bam. It seemed like an amazing phenomenon that goes little noticed because it happens every day, a miracle of synchronized intention and movement among separate organisms.

Wednesday, July 14, 2010


trumpeter’s
golden notes
drift from an upper window
linger and fade

summer clings
to one musician’s breath,
suspended
in a three-note riff

Tuesday, July 13, 2010


The faster an object travels, as it approaches the speed of light, time goes more and more slowly. As the object reaches light speed, time stops.


There's a practice in Shintaido that can involve sprinting (though not quite at light speed!) or just taking a focused step forward, called eiko dai (big glory). Through the projection of the mind and/or body forward like a laser, there can be an inner experience, a sudden burst from speed to expansive stillness.

Monday, July 12, 2010








James Herriot, the veterinarian and author of the book All Creatures Great and Small (and its many sequels), was a storyteller. He transformed his adventures as a young vet in the 1930s and 40s into entertaining, finely articulated writing that reads like an act of love. The setting in the wild and beautiful Yorkshire Dales of England was as integral to his work as the animals, farmers and pet owners. From lambing in the middle of frigid nights, to racing his jalopy up and down the hills with dogs at his wheels, he makes it sound as though his life was a privilege to live. He's a very human observor without being judgmental. His empathy and understanding of what made his patients (and their owners) tick, his appreciation of their varied personalities and habits, his ability to laugh at himself make him a good companion. He shares the absurd and miraculous. He reflects beyond what would be appropriate fare at high tea, acknowledging the amazing range of behavior in the animal world.

His books taught me a bit about anatomy and medicine, made me laugh, and helped me feel better about the world. He educated millions of us about rumens and sulfa powder. Herriot drank his whiskey with colleagues, and local ale at the pubs. He smoked his pipe, and threw an occasional curse out into the hills. An uplifting writer, he lived his affinity with the C.F. Alexander verse from which he took the titles of his books:

All things bright and beautiful,
All creatures great and small,
All things wise and wonderful,
The Lord God made them all.

Saturday, July 10, 2010








I've discovered there exist magical and healing properties in chickens (including sausage in a skillet and banties in a tree), bottled beer, Russian nesting dolls (in fictitious locations), and dark orange tea.

And that's just in my own life the last couple days. Here's an example from South Africa:

(From “Africa’s Future”
Alex Perry
Time magazine
July 19, 2010)

'Perhaps the most remarkable sight of the tournament came on its second day, outside the stadium in tiny, rural Phokeng. In the hours before the England-U.S. game, 44,000 fans stepped off their coaches into a dusty African village, asking if there were anywhere they could have a beer. After a few moments hesitation, the owners of 10 houses and a local shop threw open their doors, set up giant braiis (barbecues) of chicken in their yards and started handing out quarts of cold beer. It was perhaps the most peaceful and gently inebriated meeting of two worlds in history.'


Meanwhile I lost my glasses while I was asleep last night. I don't know how I could do that, but I'm wearing an old pair today and can't see the computer screen so good, thus a lot of squinting and the late post. I need the chickens and bottled beer, nesting dolls and dark orange tea...

I need an ibuprophen for my Saturday karate sore body.

Life is good.

Friday, July 9, 2010

Thursday, July 8, 2010


peace in the city
peace in the city
sweet soul
peace in the city

Wednesday, July 7, 2010







The sound of sheep bleating just filled the coffee shop. Turns out it was part of a song piped in, but the incongruity of sheep in a city café was a moment of funny.

Most humor has some bit of aggression to it, but the humor of the incongruous has less bite.

Of all the many animals in the Earth zoo, the only ones who seem to find anything to laugh about is the human being. Are we the only creatures with the genes for a funny bone?

We ask, is this comedy or tragedy, but sometimes we find the most potent humor from within tragedy. Laughter eases the hurt of funerals and hospitals, double shifts and dull meetings. It offers perspective and hope. Hilarity fixes things. We've been given a terrific gift. The universe with all its clock-like simplicity and elegance, its gravity and light and its dark energy, for some reason also offers us comedy.

Tuesday, July 6, 2010

from the Declaration of Independence


We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

Monday, July 5, 2010


You walk to your window just as a rat carries a plum down the sidewalk.

You go outside to follow the mewling of a stray cat and look up just as one meteor, then another, flies through Orion’s belt.

Your children text for help just at the minute you are best situated to help them.

Delicious food falls from the tree when you are hungry, and happiness lands at your feet.

You forget to stage your life. You just flow.

Sunday, July 4, 2010


I spent much of Independence Day within a small fenced area behind the building I live in. I locked myself out. No keys. No cell phone.

Sunny and breezy, the temperature felt rather cold, otherwise the time would have been pleasant. I got to know pretty well a golden Buddha sitting against the fence. I arranged some of the rocks and leaves and sticks and dirt around it. I looked at a fly, a four-winged moth, a chickadee and an ant that showed up. A long-haired cat walked by on the other side of the gate. I did some kicking stretches. I called up to the manager’s open kitchen window, but no response. I meditated. I walked along the sides of the building. I came upon a tiny cherry-colored plum on the ground, fallen from an old tree next door that happens to be the tree outside my apartment window. The plum was plump and unbruised. I was hungry and thirsty. I peeled back a strip of skin and tentatively tasted the drops of juice. They were cool and sweet. The flesh was yellow and fresh. So, I ate the plum, and felt cheered.

After a few hours, the manager returned and came downstairs, and I was freed. I almost sprang through the door. But the time spent in the small fenced area seems minor because of the perfect plum.

Saturday, July 3, 2010


People study martial arts for different reasons, for competition, for the high of sparring, for that marvelous sense of fitness. But there's a core attribute that keeps many people in some form of practice. It doesn’t run dry. You’re always learning, stretching the mind with the skills of the body, applying your body learning to everyday experiences. Martial arts, the skills of war, bring a sense of expansion, bring inner strength and serenity to one’s life. Doesn’t make much sense, does it?

Such a paradox, the learning of skills with the intent of not having to use them.

It's said you come back again and again to the beginning of the circle, only to discover you know nothing, like a new kid. But you know nothing more deeply this time around, and you’re ready to have a another go.

Friday, July 2, 2010


The bridges of the heart
are real, yes,
circular, funny,
delicate as cobwebs
weighted with dew.

Thursday, July 1, 2010


threads of hectic day
flow toward setting sun
peaceful walk
peaceful city