• A bit more on the City by the Bay

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Beltane and the Moon of Shadow Mountain

    Sunday gratefuls: Halakah. Mishne. Mitzvot. Talmud. Torah. Morning blessings. Mah Tovu. Socrates Cafe. Kate’s third yahrzeit. Snow. Thunder. Lightning. Cold. Steel gray Sky. Water. Coffee. See’s chocolate. Powell Street. Cable Cars. My son and Seoah. Murdoch. The Ancient Brothers. Home. Amtrak. Vacation. Back. Learning. Going beyond pain. Vitality.

    Sparks of Joy and Awe: My son

    One brief shining: Lightning flashed, my Midwest Self braced, counted one thousand one, one thousand two, BLAM, right over my just awakened body, the earth rattled, and my Mountain Self hoped the Lightning came with Rain, flash, one thousand one, one thousand two, BLAM, no longer directly overhead, moving away so I got up, looked out the window and lo what to my wondering eyes should appear, Snow not Rain, a couple of inches of heavy, late Spring Snow.

     

    No. I’m not in San Francisco anymore. There I had seven days of sun and warmth. My cabin fever trip came at a good point. Winter has begun to reassert itself. Reluctant to let go of the Front Range, of Shadow Mountain. Yes, I’m tired of it, tired of the Snow and the Cold, but not tired of the extra fire repression. A good setup for a short Fire season then the Monsoons. May it be so.

    Totoro

    A few more San Francisco pics and notes. Diane told me about the many women in San Francisco who go dancing in gay bars to avoid having to hassle with straight men. It’s a San Francisco thing, she said. Made sense to me.

    The Japantown mall has an immersive feel, a sort of English speaking extension of the homeland. When we found the bookstore Diane remembered, I saw a plush Totoro and the Cat Bus from Miyazaki’s My Neighbor Totoro. This store had about half English and Japanese titles.

    San Francisco has old street cars from both its past street car lines and other world cities refurbished and in use. Makes for intriguing sites on a random basis. There were many Waymo driverless taxis roaming the streets. They’re distinctive with their sensors and no one occupying the driver’s side seat.

    Last note: Friday at City Hall. Diane wanted me to see City Hall. And, it is magnificent. But I was lucky enough to see it on Friday. On Friday there are many, many weddings thanks to the promise of two days for a honeymoon. I have pictures.

     


    📂This entry was posted in Family Travel

  • Awe

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Beltane and the Moon of Shadow Mountain

    Shabbat gratefuls: Kate’s yahrzeit. Lighting the yahrzeit candle. Frost on the Lodgepole’s at Black Mountain’s peak. May 15 in Minnesota. Planting ok then, in days past. Self-care. Nuggets win in Minneapolis. Coastal Redwoods. Sequoias. Bristlecone Pine. Douglas Fir. White Pine. Fraser Pine. Ponderosa Pine. Kate’s Creek. Maxwell running full. Bear Creek.

    Sparks of Joy and Awe: Kate

    Songtan, 2016

    One brief shining: The boardwalk felt soft, welcoming as morning Sunshine filtered onto it through the Forest, its planks took shade and sun alike, filling it with gentle magic while not revealing the wonders rising only feet from its sides, where the Coastal Redwoods, which can reach over 300 feet toward the sky, with trunks requiring many hands for a complete hug, soared up from the Valley soil with grace, power.

     

    Awe. Wonder. Amazement. In my belated but so appreciated first contact with these giants of the Forest. Each one with the presence of a meditating Buddha. Still, rooted to their place, focused on their wooden dreams. Diane told me of the efforts firefighters went through to save the Sequoias, putting aluminum fire resistant blankets around their bases to protect them. I would help. The majesty of these Trees made me want to weep with joy. That we share the Earth with such entities.

    This is a possible outcome of travel. Transport to a place unexpected, even unimagined. Oh, I had an inner picture, an expectation about how it would be to see these Trees. Nothing prepared me for the sight of them. The unique and powerful sense of self they project. Wild neighbors are so precious because they show us the limits of artifice, of bending the world to our will. Wild neighbors are natural Taoists, accepting the world as it comes, adapting to its changes.

    Of course, I’m most familiar with Lodgepole Pines, Aspen, Mule Deer, Elk, Black Bears, Foxes, Mountain Lions yet the Coastal Redwood and its near relative the Sequoia are my wild neighbors, too. Just further away. How bare, spiritually, would be my world without them. Can you imagine? A world with no Wild Neighbors?

     

    Just a moment: Been thinking about the purpose of universities. Came up with three to start with: 1. Collect, curate, and conserve the deposit of human culture. Imagine and execute ways to keep it available to generations yet unborn.  2. Foster a culture of critical thought. 3. Provide those moratorium years for each generation where life becomes exploration and adventure.

    What other purposes underlie this grand social experiment?

     

    It took me until yesterday to get my Mountain legs back. To once again be here, in my life. Some psychic pain over the last few days occasioned in the main by back stress + food poisoning. When my body’s not right, it’s easy to spiral, confusing a wounded body with a wounded soul. I became febrile, fragile. Old. In need of assisted living. Foolish for living this long alone, high in the Mountains. My judgment compromised by a younger self’s commitment to the Rockies.

    Yet this morning, as I feel my way into shabbat, my new Jew soul smiles. You’re where you belong, Yisrael. And not too old. Not yet.


    📂This entry was posted in Family Feelings Fourth Phase Health Judaism Plants Travel

  • IMHO

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Beltane and the Moon of Shadow Mountain

    Friday gratefuls: Snow, a Winter wonderland. Good sleeping. Alan. The Parkside. Back to it. Groceries. Mail. Life beginning to knit itself back together. Gaza. Israel. Biden. Orange one. Trials of. Japan. Korea. Taiwan. Hong Kong. China. The Philipines. The South China Sea. Vietnam. Cambodia. Thailand. Australia. Micronesia and Polynesia. The Pacific Rim.

    Sparks of Joy and Awe: Oxygen in the blood

    One brief shining: Great Sol illuminates this Snowy world behind a cold white Sky, clouds like opaque linen handkerchiefs, my Lodgepole Companion with Snow and Frost on their branches, they do not look surprised, only resigned, not a usual look for mid-May, but not unknown either, the Mountains have their own weather, always, often surprising, one of the joys of living at altitude.

     

    Both Mary and Mark have asked me to comment, compare and contrast the anti-Vietnam protest era against this one. A blue book question for this year’s contemporary Civilization final. I’ll add to it observations about the long decline of what I consider the value of higher education. I believe they’re connected.

    Let me begin with some stipulations:

    1. I support Israel as a nation. This is not the same as supporting its recent military decisions. Which I don’t.
    2. I support Palestinian statehood. This is not the same as supporting Hamas. Which I do not.
    3. I have ambivalent feelings about the U.S. support of Israel’s ongoing invasion of Gaza. That is, I appreciate the U.S. helping Israel defend itself against terrorism. But we went along too far.
    4. I absolutely support students on both sides of the divide in having a right to give voice to their anger, their political analysis.
    5. I do not support anti-Semitism of any sort. Like “from the river to the sea.” for example.
    6. I understand the heat of the moment and the narrowing of vision that comes with all in commitment to a cause. It does not absolve any one of the necessity for critical thinking. (One of the values of higher education, btw)

    Vietnam was, imho, a simpler issue. We were interfering in a civil war, one that had nothing, nada, to do with the U.S. Except our latter day role as the new France of Indochine. And we played silly buggers with the policy at every step. Including and most consequentially the Gulf of Tonkin resolution.

    When we decided to enter the war ourselves, no longer limited to military advisors and weapons sales, we reinstituted the draft. Oh, boy. The Vietnam protests, like the Gaza ones of today, had a crucial flaw. Their flaw was the draft and its exemptions. All of us who protested were covered by a draft exemption as long as we stayed in school. That meant the war and its U.S. victims were going to be poor white and people of color who couldn’t get to college.

    The Gaza flaw is a bit more subtle. Championing the rights of Palestinians against the Israeli bombs and tanks and invasionary forces so easily slips over into anti-Semitism. This is not an either/or. It’s not either Israel is put down and Palestinians lifted up or nothing. No. The issue is how to create a Middle East that can be a safe home for all.

    That’s another post. Here I’ll just say that when a consensus occurs and forces coalesce the result has the power to shake the foundations of society. But not necessarily in predictable ways.

    I feel our protests were more innocent, more focused on culture change, especially as they went on. Hippies and radicals. Feminists. Labor unionists. Religionists. We wanted to stop the US war machine, not the US itself. Though a few of us may have harbored ambitions there, too. I get the sense that the Gaza folks want to eliminate Israel. That’s when the whole effort crashes over into rank anti-Semitism. And is a major difference from the 60’s.

    More to say, but enough for  now.


    📂This entry was posted in Judaism Memories Politics US History

  • Photos

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Beltane and the Moon of Shadow Mountain

    Thursday gratefuls: Peanuts. Oxygen concentrators. Fences. Kohler generator. Bonobos. New clothes. Being alive. That snapped Lodgepole. High Winds. Home. Shadow Mountain. Its long, sloped flank. The Aquifer. The Well. The leech field. The septic tank. Sewer and water. Moods. Their fungibility.

    Sparks of Joy and Awe: Better body

    One brief shining: Moods flutter in and out of my psyche like scared birds, not sure where to roost, where to go, how long to stay, often unnoticed until just before they exit, hey sadwinged, hey joyous smile, oh not you again self doubter, unwelcome voice, fly away, here again deep attention, welcome back, come ahead shy one, bring it on feisty mood and all the others throughout the day lifting me up, crashing me down, changing me. Mood.

     

    Picture show. San Francisco

    My roomette
    Before Winter Park
    On the Bay Bridge
    The Chancellor Hotel
    Japanese Tea Garden
    Legion of Honor
    Cable Car
    Driverless Waymo Taxi
    Earthquake Shack

    📂This entry was posted in Travel

  • I feel my powers returning

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Beltane and the Moon of Shadow Mountain

    Wednesday gratefuls: Sleep. Great Sol. My Lodgepole Companion. Black Mountain. My son. Seoah. Murdoch. Diane. San Francisco. Torah portion. Tara. Irv. Marilyn. Fingers and toes. Noses. Skin. Taste and Smell. Opening the heart. And the mind. Snow. Frost. 25 degrees. Mountain Spring. Wild Neighbors. Maxwell Creek. Kate’s Creek. Colorado Blue Sky.

    Sparks of Joy and Awe: Being Home

    One brief shining: As the train ran on metal wheels, pulled by massive diesel engines, my roomette and I remained still, watching the U.S. West unfold from the Presidio past Sacramento and on into the Sierra Nevadas, into the alakali flats of Nevada with Battle Mountain and its gold mines, next into the big stop for Brigham Young-Utah, Provo and Salt Lake City gone in the night while I slept, awakening to hoodoos, not long not long after pushing on into Grand Junction, home in Colorado, home in the Rockies, a few more hours of Mountains and Streams, ski towns, Snow, and we took a long gentle curve to bleed off altitude and made the final leg into Union Station where Adam picked me up for my return to Shadow Mountain.

     

    As my son once said, in a line quoted often by Kate and me, “I feel my powers returning.” He said this on the way home from Arizona after her parent’s 50th anniversary party. We were in our RV somewhere in New Mexico. This food poisoning really put the hurt on me. Exacerbated no doubt by having to take that long train ride home. And by its following a week that already stressed my body. Maybe too by its having taken up lodging in a 77 year old body. We don’t throw things off as easily as we age. Even so I can feel my body regrouping, gathering strength, much needed and appreciated strength.

    Back to exercise? No. The tummy would not support that quite yet. Buy some groceries, Bar Mitzvah lesson, more rest, The change however has begun to flow in a positive direction.

     

    Just a moment: Yes, I admit it. The hush money trial? That one where a former president could go to jail for contempt? Where the witnesses include Michael Cohen and Stormy Daniels? Where a once and future king could become a felon. Where he could be sentenced to prison. Has my attention. Like watching a slow-motion train wreck of our nation’s rule of law, norms of decency, and our ability to stomach one more written sentence-like this one?-about, well. You know.

    Glad we now have in the record the positions the Donald and Stormy experienced with each other. His bareback style. His boxer shorts that suddenly appeared. No tightie whities for our Don.

    In my admittedly hopeful and legally unshaped opinion? He did it! He did it! He did it! Lock him up. Right now.

    God. If only. I can see signs, dark signs that events may conspire to give the orange one an advantage in November. Consider this the first movements of a spell I’m casting. Against just such a thing.

     


    📂This entry was posted in Health Politics Travel

  • No Title

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Beltane and the 1% Moon of Liberation

    Tuesday gratefuls: 29 degrees. Freeze warning. Spits of Snow. Not in the Bay Area anymore. Windy, a cold white Sky. Ah, the merry, merry month of May! Mark in Bangkok. Where it’s hot, dense, different from his last visit. Staying at home, letting the food poisoning resolve. Shadow Mountain. A Lodgepole topped by high Winds. Food. Water. Rest. As buddy Mark Odegard observed, “At our age traveling is hard work.”

    Sparks of Joy and Awe: Sleep

    One brief shining: Looked out my bedroom window and found a green Shrub that was unfamiliar, unfamiliar?, in the scene I see several times a day, I shook my head, no, can’t be, yet there, oh wait, my eye had traveled to the top of a Lodgepole next to the new Shrub, that fresh gash; it was a Tree top snapped off in one of our high Winds, yes the transition in weather can be brutal here.

     

    Though the back dominated my trip the food poisoning of last Friday night has dominated its end and my return home. I know. I know. Debbie downer. Again. You can skip this without guilt. Still, I want to leave bread crumbs about life here. So. Not sure where I picked up the bad food, bad food stay down! Damn it. Possibly Japantown where Diane and I had lunch. Maybe that piece of tempura shrimp? Whatever it was by 9 pm on Friday I had both diarrhea and vomiting. And not just a little. I became weak, dehydrated, and, of course, did not sleep on that the night before I reboarded the California Zephyr for the return trip to Denver.

    Packing seemed impossible. I called Diane and asked her to come help. Even when I did I knew, due to the parking situation, that she couldn’t. But she understood. A real sweetheart, my cousin. Instead of packing I stuffed things in the Travelpro. Going home that’s ok. All will need washing and care anyhow when back. At least that’s what I told myself. Finished up. Went downstairs and checked out. Diane came.

    It was a Rainy Saturday after seven straight days of beautiful weather. Sunny. Light Breezes. Warm but never hot. Like a movie the weather signaled my inner world. I got on the Amtrak bus and headed across the Bay Bridge.

    The journey home. Garret helped. The sleeping car attendant. Brought me my meals.  There was a bathroom just down the hall. My roomette was on the ground level of the sleeper along with five others, checked bags, and shower rooms. Couldn’t have asked for a better set up.

    At Union Station Adam picked me up in his Tahoe (Now, I’ve been there. Sort of.) and deposited me on Shadow Mountain. I needed his help getting my bag in and out.

    Now Tuesday morning. Trying to stay hydrated without getting my stomach excited enough to remember Friday night. Still eating bland food. Sleeping a lot. Nap after I write this.

    Just a moment: Oh, the agony. NOW the Timberwolves get real.

     

     

     

     


    📂This entry was posted in Health Sport Travel

  • Backing Away

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Beltane and the Moon of Liberation

    Monday gratefuls: Shadow Mountain Home. My pillow. My bed. The Rockies. Living in the Front Range. Amtrak. Garrett. Sleeping car attendant. Travel. Diane. San Francisco. Muir Woods. The Japanese Tea Garden. That early transitional Rothko at the De Young. The Thinker at the Legion of Honor. Ukiyo-e prints. Japan town. Bernal Hill. The Mission. 12 Lucky.

    Sparks of Joy and Awe: Homecoming

    One brief shining: Found my key under the chair arm where I left it for Ana, opened the door, and came home for the first time in eight days, medieval French music played quietly downstairs, a power outage and generator start having turned it on, rolled the Travelpro over to the ottoman and used it like a hotel luggage rack so I could get at what I needed, my meds and the Lidocaine patch, went downstairs and using the remote turned off the music, sinking into my chair. Ah.

     

    Don’t like saying it out loud. Admitting it to myself. However. Traveling has changed for me. Probably permanently. I had all the usual delights in San Francisco. Seeing Diane on her home turf, her home on 12 Lucky, her jogging route up to Bernal Hill, and the small town like neighborhood commercial area which includes Wise Son’s Deli and an $8 haircut. Visiting amazing places like Muir Woods and the Japanese Tea Garden. Seeing great work by artists old-like Hokusai and Rodin-and new like Lee Mingwei’s Rituals of Care. Being driven by a native up one lane, yet inexplicably two way streets angled like steep Mountain roads. Seeing Earthquake shacks, lived in today, but built as temporary housing for the victims of 1906.

    Diane and I visited Japantown, drove through the beautiful Presidio, and I bought some new clothes not far from the Chancellor Hotel across Union Square. Bonobo’s on Grant Street. I would make the journey again (well, probably not, but you get the feeling) just to see the Redwoods. So stunning. So magnificent. So alive. These beings remind me that life’s boundaries are much looser than our often blinkered day-to-day allows us to see.

    And yet. At the start of each day I felt good. Walked over to Sears Fine Foods for breakfast. Met Diane. We went here or there, the Asian Art Museum, the De Young, Muir Woods. After walking any distance or, even harder, standing in one place, hello-museums!, my back would signal me through hip pain, sometimes even neck pain. Not long after I walked bent over, neck awry. Even with the lidocaine patch, the stretches, the very occasional NSAID. Gonna make one more pass through the medical system. See if there’s stuff I’m missing, could use. If not, and I’m not expecting anything, my traveling days have changed.

    I can go for a couple to three hours of sight seeing, after transportation which has its own ouches.  Then. Back to the hotel for the day. I’m done. Either I go somewhere and stay a while or it won’t make sense to go. At my son’s in Korea I can stay in their apartment when I need to rest. I’ll get over there next year for his taking command ritual, maybe stay a couple of months. Might cough and faint in dismay but I might buy a business class ticket so I can arrive more or less uninjured.

     

     

     


    📂This entry was posted in Art and Culture Asia Family Feelings Fourth Phase Health Travel

  • In them thar hills

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Beltane and the Moon of Liberation

    Friday gratefuls: Hills. Bernal Hill. Diane’s jogging path. Wise Son’s. Since 5771. 12 Lucky Street. Earthquake shacks. Mission. Valencia. 24th Street. Community Music Center. Maru Sushi. Chancellor. Unafraid to have a 13th floor. Bell guy. Laundry. Cool nights. Mild days. 6 sunny days.

    Sparks of Joy and Awe: Neighborhoods

    One brief shining: Drove in to Diane’s well organized garage, got out, and waited for her, taking pictures of the murals across from 12 Lucky, when she came back we walked one lane Lucky, with cars parked on both sides to 24th, where we turned left into a low scale neighborhood with $8 haircuts, a street sign: Latino Cultural District, and a ways down Wise Son’s Deli where we ate breakfast, lox and bagel for Diane, latke smash-up for me.

     

    Last day on Powell Street. Back on Amtrak tomorrow morning at 8:25 am. Powell, California, and one other street have working cable cars. Diane pointed out an interesting aspect of other street cars used here. Some of them are faithfully restored models from the past or, in other cases, from other countries. Very cool.

    Yesterday was San Francisco daily life immersion with a visit to Diane’s antique filled home on 12 Lucky Street. Many of the pieces of furniture I recognized from Uncle Riley and Aunt Virginia’s house on the farm. 12 Lucky is a peaceful, calm spot with various salvaged items from Diane’s jogging up Bernal Hill, finds of furniture and plants that others have thrown out. Lucky Street is off the main street of her neighborhood but parallel to it. A quieter environment. She’s been there 14 years.

    Her neighborhood has a definite small town feel to it, lots of Latinos, some Samoans, Jews, African Americans, remnants of the halcyon days of the late 60’s. A spot where a person can live a normal life in a city, especially with Bernal Hill so close by.

    Diane has taken me by the hand this week. Showed me her town. Commiserated with my aching back. Been understanding when I bail out on a day early. Thanks, Diane. Much appreciated.

    Yesterday, too, we saw earthquake shacks. These tiny homes built of redwood, most under 900 square feet, were built to house victims of the 1907 earthquake. Most are gone but a few remain scattered around the city, several in Bernal Hill.

    To do that we drove up and down steeply inclined streets with cars parked on both sides and only one available lane for two way traffic. It was Diane’s milieu and that was obvious from the way she navigated. Yet. For an outsider? Would have been nerve jangling to drive here. Especially with a manual transmission as Diane has.

    We returned to the Chancellor via Mission Street and Valencia, Mission still with nefarious activity, Diane’s words, yet apparently less than before. Valencia more a young urbanite location with restaurants and bike lanes.

     

    My back is worse than I imagined. Very limiting. I have about a half day or less of energy. Makes future travel plans much different from what I might otherwise choose.

     


    📂This entry was posted in Family Feelings Fourth Phase Health Travel

  • Tea and Art

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Beltane and the Moon of Liberation

    Thursday gratefuls: Sam Wo’s Wonton soup. Chinese donuts. See’s candy. The Japanese Tea Garden. The De Young. Its early Rothko. Golden Gate Park. Taking a rest. Jazz floating in my hotel room window. Sunny weather. San Francisco. China Town.

    Sparks of Joy and Awe: Chocolate

    One brief shining: Walked down a sidewalk, a side street of Chinatown, past the mural with a meditating Buddha rendered in psychedelic colors, wearing sunglasses, past a Buddhist temple, recalled the Golden Sagely Monastery from further up on Grant, past afternoon closed restaurants to the Sam Wo, a restaurant Diane remembered because of its famously rude waiter, Edsel Ford Fung, ate a delicious bowl of Wonton soup, and for desert we left Sam Wo’s and found our way to a one-pound box each of See’s chocolates.

     

    Oh. Could be misunderstood. We only bought one pound of chocolate. Didn’t eat it. Though we did get the best butter peanut candy as a gift. Which we did eat. And it was good.

     

    Started yesterday morning at the Japanese Tea Garden in Golden Gate Park. What a beautiful place. Irises in bloom, purple daggers thrown up toward any pollinator happening by. Wooden bridges. Metal Moon bridges. Granite bridges. Koi in the delicately designed pond with small flared stone lamps and Lilies floating upon it. A few Coastal Redwoods at its perimeter. Stones and Rocks honored for their presence and rough prominence. Some rounded topiary.

    A tea shop with a bench overlooking the pond where Diane and I sat. Heard a man with a Stanford Engineering sweat shirt explain that he and his wife came there every year on their anniversary. The Koi swam below him.

     

    From the Japanese Tea Garden we walked over to the De Young, passing by a wonderful band shell, and the Academy of Sciences. Magnolias in bloom.

    The entry way to the lobby had a crack in its paving Stone which, I noticed, continued from the pavers through much larger blocks of the same Stone set here and there. Andy Goldworthy, Diane said. Simple. Profound.

    On our way to the Modern and Contemporary Art galleries there was a large Ed Ruscha tryptych. Much larger than anything of his I’d seen before. A landscape, probably a desert, with his trademark words written across it. He’s a favorite of mine from my Walker days.

    Found several interesting American artists represented including Grant Wood, The Threshers, and a Thomas Hart Benton. Also a few new to me. Many commenting on the struggles of workers in the early part of the 20th century.

    An early Rothko from his transition away from representational toward abstraction. This one had more shapes than his later paintings, but also had colors floating on each other creating their own environment like his mature work.

    A Taiwanese conceptual artist Lee Mingwei had four installations, all clever and interesting.

     

    Well, gotta go. Diane’s picking me up for a deli breakfast at Wise Son’s near her house.

    Back more and more problematic. A real limitation. Damn it.

    (not edited. will do later)


    📂This entry was posted in Art and Culture Family Feelings Fourth Phase Travel

  • Magnificent

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Beltane and the Moon of Liberation

    Wednesday gratefuls: Cesario’s. Veal Marsala. Muir Woods. The Coastal Redwoods. Filling in the history. Diane and her VW. Scooting around San Francisco like a native. Oh, wait. The Legion of Honor. Ukiyo-e print exhibition. The Golden Gate Bridge. The Bay. Land’s End. Sea Cliff where the rich and famous live. The Presidio. Beautiful.

    Sparks of Joy and Awe: Hokusai, Hiroshige. Redwoods.

    One brief shining: We’ll need bigger cameras, I thought as Diane and I strolled along the wooden walkway surrounded by Trees than can reach 380 feet in height, the Coastal Redwoods are slimmer and taller than their close relatives, the Sequoias, rising, rising, rising their Needles far above the Valley Floor, so tall Diane said that they create their own weather.

     

    Though I love art and have found both the Asian Art Museum and the Legion of Honor wonderful, the artifice of human hands and hearts cannot compare to the outright majesty and awe occasioned by the natural world outside our homes and cities. To walk along, see in the distance a grove of Trees, and see the bellied human lifting a camera lens toward the sky, how small he is in his gray t-shirt, the Tree standing tall. You could stack in cheerleader mode 50 or more of this man, one on the shoulders of the other and still be below the Tree’s top!

    Oddly though I did not feel small beside them, rather I felt lifted up, this Wild Neighbor. Wow. Many signs say stay on the path and folks as far as I could see, obeyed. But when one of the big Trees was right along the walkway I felt a strong pull, walked over and hugged the small portion of the Trunk I could encompass.

    These Trees are not only tall and big around, they are also old. Many well over a millennia. The scale of their size lifts them beyond the usual, but the scale of their life’s length, so far, beggars my imagination. The birds that have lit upon them. The ambitious squirrels clambering up their wrinkled bark. The humans who have camped beneath them, been shaded by them, who benefited from soil enriched by them. Generations born and died as these Trees continued their commitment to this place.

    My life is better now for having walked among these beings whose life is long. And large.

     

    Diane drove us up the Coast, along the Bay to Land’s End where the Legion of Honor museum sits pillared and courtyarded, a final bastion of human life beyond which the Ocean dominates.

    We saw the Ukiyo-e print show, one that used the changing nature of wood block printing to illustrate the transition from the Shogunate to the Meiji Restoration. The Edo period Ukiyo-e prints of Utagawa, Hiroshige, Hokusai, Utamoro were my favorite works in the show. The later woodblock prints that had images of soldiers, warships, men and women in formal attire had more historical than aesthetic significance.

    The Shunga though. Sexy.


    📂This entry was posted in Art and Culture Family Feelings Fourth Phase Plants