Sisters in Jade-Land

My niece Jade and sisters Jenny, Teresa and Patricia captured in a photo-manipulation

Goofiness

Click on picture ..maybe twice

Ozzz

Just a cheery lookin' mate from down undahh

Two nudes

My feeble attempt at doing something along the lines of Maxfield Parrish ~ Please click on picture to enlarge

Ocean view

Jim is in town today ..we’re sitting outside the restaurant at Arroyo Burro beach ..and he asks me if I’ve read ‘Da Vinci Code’ yet ..like he recommended years ago ..no, I haven’t ..I instinctively avoid ‘trendy’ literature ..but I am attracted to new ideas ..especially ones that challenge the established order of things ..and I know that DaVinci Code has a world-class premise ..it's also refreshing to see ‘information’ being treated as ‘holy grail’ material ..with all of the life-giving properties that that entails. I say, you know Jim ..I’ve been around the ocean most of my life ..and it wouldn’t surprise me to learn that King Neptune has a hidden ‘grail’ full of information as well. What kind of information ? Well, if you believe that life evolved from the ocean ..then it makes sense that the secrets to sustaining life ..and curing life-threatening diseases ..are floating around out there ..I mean, would we have come this far if there wasn't something out there mopping things up ..?

California poppies

There’s a lightening storm passing through my head today ..disrupting my vision and rearranging the view. I can feel the ground shake underneath my feet ..as I go through the doorway ..and run down the street. California poppies and eucalyptus groves. I stop on a bridge above a lagoon ..and watch brightly colored sea water moving below. I walk aimlessly down the streets of IV (a sleepy little college town by the sea) ..lots of bicycles, birkenstocks, paisley covered halter tops and surf board shops .. students with sand in their hair and feet ..curve around me as they pass ..looking so fresh and pure ..it’s like worldly concerns don’t reach them here. Another lightening storm ..I duck through a bar door ..order a beer and start a friendly conversation ..which takes an unexpected turn and goes no where. I walk out on the bluff and watch the waves crash ..I close my eyes and feel the storm pass. Around sunset I hear somebody say: “Hey dude ..cha’ figure it all out yet ..?”

Zen ceremony

For Steve’s passage (see post titled ‘A passing’ below) ..I’ve prepared a short zen ceremony to be performed at the unity church later this week. They let you do that there. When traveling someplace new ..it is good to have a guide. Like most things in zen ..it is meant to be simple so it doesn't obscure the way. All that is needed is a bowl of water ..candles ..incense ..food items ..and flowers. It goes something like this:

• We perform this ceremony to help guide Steve on the path to his new home.
• We call on Steve to break the bounds of karma ..leave selfish desire behind ..and enter a world beyond birth and death ..delusion and suffering.
  
• We offer water to cleanse the lenses and reveal the path to existence beyond.
  
• We offer light to illuminate the path to existence beyond.
  
• We offer food to remind us of the cyclic nature of life on earth.
  
• We offer flowers to remind us that life is as transient as dew.
  
• We say goodbye to Steve in clouds of incense ..may it’s fragrance help him pass beyond the clouds that hide heaven from our sight
  
• We recite these words in hope that Steve is now at home in peace.

A passing

When Steve was a teenager he had the longest blond hair I’d ever seen ..and it shined. He looked like a rock star ..like the actor Gary Busey. Remember Busey’s son Jake in the movie ‘Contact’ ..? That was him. I remember high school ..some jocks were picking on him ..he told them that it would come back around someday ..after that they left him alone. Go figure (..?) He used to sell drugs ..but was getting paranoid ..said there were snitches everywhere. Then he disappeared. I didn't see him again until we ran into each other in college one day ..by accident. He was studying to be a counselor ..so he could help teenagers with drug problems ..he didn’t have to study hard. During college, Steve fell in love with a girl named Jody ..but she broke his heart ..and he took it real bad ..even dropped out of school. Still, Steve was as strong as an ox ..and had a kevlar constitution. He completed every one of the LA marathons he ran in. I remember one night he drove to San Francisco ..drank a gallon of burgundy wine ..got three hours of sleep in his car ..was sitting on the john when the starting gun went off ..and still managed to complete the San Francisco marathon with a time good enough to qualify for the Boston marathon. In July of 1991, the both of us met in Oracle, Arizona ..just outside of Tucson ..where his friend Janais Caprallis was chief architect for the Biosphere. We got a tour of the place just before they sealed it with ..rainforest ..monkeys ..savannah ..and all. Afterwards we had a big barbeque at Janais's ranch in the Catalina mountains. Man, we felt like cowboys on the wild frontier. My health and running practice took a nose dive around then. In 1993, Steve drove up to Santa Barbara and helped me get back into shape. Afterwards I ran in a 10-mile race. It was my personal best.

I’m so sad you’re gone buddy. I really love you. You will be missed.

Little red spider

I’m having my car reupholstered. I’ve never done that before. Some people say I ought to take it to Mexico and get it done ..others say I ought to just get rid of it. It’s almost 20 years old ..I guess that’s sounds like a lot ..but I’ve been holding on to it, not because I’m sentimental or anything ..but because it’s just so much fun to drive ..it feels like a skate ..I lean ..it turns. It even has a removable hard top from the factory ..also cherry red. I’ve been offered thousands for the top alone ..apparently you can’t get them unless you already own this particular model alfa even though it fits them all ..so they tell me that if I sell them mine ..I can go order another one for myself at a fraction of what they’re willing to pay ..they tell me they have friends who’ll be willing to offer me the same deal. I always say no. In fact, you can’t even buy this model alfa in the states any more. One time a guy came up to me off the street and offered to buy the car for however much I was willing to accept ..without haggling ..he pulled out a big wad of hundreds. I figured he was trying to impress his girlfriend, who was much much younger ..so I said OK ..seventy grand ..which is way way more that it’s worth. He knew that ..but I guess his girlfriend didn't ..because she's going like: yeh yeh ..I want it I want it.

Plugged in

It is my belief that a dedicated surfer knows more about the ocean than any well-trained oceanographer. It’s not because the surfer is more intelligent or anything ..it’s because he’s ‘plugged into’ the conditions of the ocean ..they make a bigger difference to him. Now, I’m no Joe-great surfer ..but I bet you I can see more shades of blue in the ocean than say ..a farmer from Nebraska. Living on the West Coast has fashioned my perception ..and tuned my senses to the signals of the region. It’s subliminal. I can generally tell what a day at the beach will be like ..the night before. For instance, when I hear trees creaking at night ..I know we’re in for cool dry weather the next day ..the ocean water will be greenish-blue and the surf will be fair somewhere farther up the coast ..like around El Capitan. If I can hear the sound of sea lions barking at night ..it means it’ll be a warm, windless day tomorrow ..and generally good surf up and down the coast ..from Rincon to Refugio. On the other hand ..indigo-blue skies ..sharp stars ..and a clear line on the horizon ..tell me there’s going to be an offshore flow ..making the air crisp ..the water glassy ..and the surf tubular ..a most excellent day to dodge work. I like an offshore flow.

Mystic transport

Here's another theory of consciousness ..I may have caught a glimpse of this one time ..I call it ‘mystic transport’. It’s like going through a gate where there are no doors ..into a passage without walls ..then down a stream and into a pool of consciousness that spreads out past the barriers that ordinarily exist between you, me and other people in the room ..like a motion picture where the line between actor and audience disappears ..the scenes go backward as well as forward ..and time loops around so that the past reappears containing elements of the future.

Sense of proximity

I have another theory that says we can look even farther than the periphery ..and tell when someone is approaching ..or even thinking about us ..at a distance well beyond the means of ordinary senses. I call it a sense of proximity. In prehistoric times, it was part of a perceptual system that picked up early warning signals ..but atrophied with disuse. Who knows, there might still be remnants of it laying dormant in some people.

Peripheral vision

My theory is that we all have the ability to look into the future ..a few steps ahead of the conscious-making operations of the mind. What’s out there is mostly raw sensory-data .. energy, vibration and stuff like that. What we consciously perceive is what the senses have been conditioned to let through ..like a semi-permeable membrane. Young children, who haven’t had so much conditioning ..experience more. Older adults, who think they know it all, are less receptive ..and consequently ..experience less.