Beatrix Kiddo

I take a pleasant 4-mile trek from my house to the Martial Arts and Family Fitness Center where I’ve come to see Jen D take her test for the black belt in Hapkido. I arrive and take a seat beside a mat that covers an entire floor of a large industrial-looking room. About halfway through the adult program .. Jen takes a blow to the solar plexus while sparring that staggers her. She taps-out and leaves the mat where she quickly recovers and returns for the next drill. After an hour and a half of takedown drills and spinning kicks designed to disarm her opponent ..her final feat is a flying sidekick, which you have to be there to believe. She takes a running start to gain forward momentum .. goes airborne over three barrels ..and kicks a board that’s three inches thick with the sole of her right foot .. breaking it in half with a resounding crack. It’s not like she has feet made of steel or anything ..but she’s learned to deliver ‘energy’ - created by her weight and momentum - to the soles of her feet at the exact moment of impact. She passes with flying colors. Her Grandmaster tells her to drop the red belt she’s wearing and then he ceremoniously wraps a black belt around her. Now, Jen conveys feelings mostly through her face, which at this moment is beaming red with ecstasy and a smile so large it lights up the room.

Jen D aka Beatrix Kiddo

Ricardo

I think Ricardo mistook the phrase “lets do coffee ..”  for  “..lets do it tomorrow.”   He’s accusing the guy of being a flake because he didn’t show. He goes on to tell me that he’s learned to text blindfolded so he can do it while hiding the cell phone in the pocket of his jacket during class. It almost sounds like he’s backpedaling when he says his friends have a real problem ..they can’t stop texting even when they’re talking to him at lunch. What do I make of this ..? I think he wants to impress me with his cleverness but at the same time make sure I don’t get the wrong idea ..he’s not like the other kids his age. It sounds that way because I don’t have a stereotype of other kids his age. I figure it feels to him like he’s talking to one of his parents when he’s talking to me because he’s still in high school and everything. Not sure I can level the playing field.  Too tired to try really. Oh well, doesn't make that much difference.

Konstanz

am Bodensee

The path

to Haskells

Freedom

to do naked bong hits
photo courtesy of Coral Reefer

Rapture

Diane pays homage to the power of the pumpkin

record collector

The Santa Ynez Valley

 /  But my blue eyes cannot see  / That their real hue's probably green / I should keep records of these things   /  And I'll know what yesterday brings

proprioceptive entry

Cleansing my palate by sucking on a lemony-flavored ricola and washing it down with warm water. Asking myself what’s worth writing about ..weighing the alternatives like I usually do ..obsessing about what others might think. What sounds cool is the big question. Like the characters in a Tom Wolfe novel ..constantly imagining the impression I leave with others ..and like those characters ..getting it wrong most of the time. When I think I look cool I probably come across more like an egotistical jerk. Now I’m reminding myself to behave in a more yielding manner, which is a topic for another time. Stop. Now I’m struggling with a short list of topics to write about ..rehab ..people of interest to me ..my own ‘explanatory style’ ..what do I mean by explanatory style ..? Looking at the narrative I use to explain what’s been happening in my life. Like when I blow off practice or a social event ..is it because I’m lazy, timid, neurotic? Slack by nature? Are these the reasons I have this gnawing feeling of discontentment ..? And are these the reasons I’ll be forever doomed to feelings of discontentment ..?

Proprioceptive writing is a practice I learned at an Esalen workshop~> [ link ]

Coral in Amsterdam

Coral Reefer reporting from

 Cannabis Cup 2012 in Amsterdam

Kundalini Shakti

Be Here Now
Photo courtesy of Kālī at

ॐ AUM ॐ

presupposition

So true for me

Big Sur

Ventana Wilderness

Photo by Stan Russell

ZZ Ward

Latest  discovery 

( for me anyway )

Sampling Amsterdam

Coral Reefer reporting from Amsterdam: “..at the Cannabis Cup they’re presenting marijuana from different coffee shops around town”

Jason

This morning I go out on the deck to take breakfast and meet someone I don’t think I’ve ever met before. I live off the beaten path and you almost have to know where your going to get here ..so I’m not sure. He’s sitting comfortably with his legs out-stretched looking disarming enough. Mid-twenties, short hair, clean-shaven ..wearing freshly washed Diesel jeans and high-top Nike basketball shoes. He was on his way to stay with his sister and decided to take an alternate route. It narrows into a private road so he ducks into a driveway. The driveway ends at a creek where he sees my deck. His knee hurts so he finds a place to sit. Now he’s apologizing profusely for the intrusion ..and for just about every other word coming out of his mouth. He’s up on his feet but I see he’s favoring the left leg and looks kinda’ disoriented. I invite him to stay and offer him some coffee. He tells me his knee got tweaked in an accident and he was in the hospital. He’s here due to an unfortunate series of events. He lost his job ..lost his apartment ..lost his girlfriend and crashed his truck ..so he walks everywhere he goes. He’s local and I suspect there’s nothing in his background to prepare him for what’s going to happen next. He says his greatest fear is how other people are going to judge him for the situation he’s in. So he keeps walking.

Cafe in Amsterdam

Coral Reefer reporting from Amsterdam “Purchased some imported Moroccan hash at The Other Side for €10/gram. The quality imported hash selection in Amsterdam is something we just don’t have in the United States.”

Sunset

Sunset at Big Sur last night by Libby Pink

Willingness to yield

Occupational therapy:

“Jen, is it really necessary for me to take a behind-the-wheel test for the  6-week   follow-up ..?”
“Well, it is optional but it’ll help make a better case to present the    DMV ..”

     This is where I cut her off to explain ‘the agreement’

“Dr Bryson said she was going to wait for the 6-week follow-up before deciding whether she even needs to notify the DMV ..”
“Well, any doctor can notify the DMV anytime ..”
“Yeah, but we agreed ..”
“Let me explain how it works ..”
“Wait, first let me explain the agreement ..”
“I think I need to tell you how it works first ..” 

I sense things getting a little edgy and now I forget who actually went first but I blame myself for not being more ‘yielding’. Jen has no idea about a verbal agreement I made as an inpatient, which is an exception to the way it works. But if I'd given her a chance to explain how it works, I’d have understood hat it’s totally up to the whim of the doctor and nothing I could say was really going to matter much. Not even the agreement. It’s out of our hands and that’s good enough for me ..yielding soul I aspire to be.

Jen
Therapist Extraordinaire

Sunrise

from Lizards Mouth trail ..!
Santa Barbara

Planet Hollywood

She’s a clear signal appearing in the center of noisy space. Everything else gets pushed to the edges. When she laughs ..she takes command of the place without even trying. I can see people frozen in the distance. Like a deer caught in the headlights ..so am I. When we talk ..her attention is mine. I can feel the warmth of its glow. When she leaves ..there’s a wake in the fabric that the rest of the world falls into. Fortunately there’s a trace or her that persists until next time ..making me feel  more at home on this planet.

Crime Scene Investigation

I’ve got my trekking poles and I’m heading down side streets to Trader Joe’s on Milpas. I pass by Tom and Michaels’ but I don’t see them around and I don’t want to stop and break my stride. I see women’s softball practice at the high school and I do stop and break my stride. The shortstop has a mean throw to first. Farther along I see a poster for a play at the Marjorie Luke Theater saying Crime Scene Investigation – Fairy Tale Unit ‘where the justice system is represented by two separate but equally ridiculous groups’ ..which makes me laugh. Sounds pretty satirical for middle school. I drop by Vera’s salon and say ‘hi’ just before a group of kids come bursting through the door. Puts a smile on my face. I wind up buying more than my pack will hold at Trader Joe’s so a crew member calls a taxi. Now I’m standing at a bus stop waiting for a taxi, the irony of which is not lost on me. Next time this happens I’m taking the bus!

Tao

Tao
Spoken
Is like
Vapor
Obscuring
Tao
Followed
Is like
Earth
Unfolding

Lao Tzu

Pathways

“The cerebral cortex, of all parts of the central nervous system, must be regarded as the most plastic in recent evolution, reflecting new behavioral requirements of niches carved out by increasingly complex relations between predator and prey, and the increasing demands for more subtle relationships within the species.” Harting (1973)

I have a theory. I believe present-day verbal abilities are an extension of our sense of tracking in the wild. Our female ancestors must have found a way to code and convey this experience before their young hit the road on their own and either got lost or devoured. A test of concept would be to see if a short course in wilderness tracking offered by Outward Bound significantly improves verbal skills. I don’t expect it will do much for phonics or vocabulary but it may help students track and comprehend discourse better as well as improve their ability to speak and write coherently. Although these skills may seem dissimilar on the surface ..they do share some common components of cognition. They both require attention, orientation and ‘signal detection’ .. or the ability to focus and distinguish between relevant and irrelevant/distracting information. Granted outdoor tracking is largely ‘spatial’ and ‘visual’ while language is ‘conceptual’ and ‘auditory’ .. the cerebral cortex responsible for conceptual thought did evolve from the sensory areas of the brain, which in humans is largely visual. Anyway, it’s just a theory.

String theory

....Lindsey Stirling violin on dub-step

Flickering memory

I’ve discovered that I can remember movies I watched prior to 1995 almost verbatim, however, any movie released after that, I can watch repeatedly and it’s almost like seeing it for the first time. I admit that I sometimes sit halfway through a film before realizing I’ve seen it before ..maybe even more than once. For instance, I saw ‘Body Double’ last night ...not having seen it since way back in 1985. I could remember the ending quite clearly and anticipate just about every scene ..and almost every line. However, I’ve been watching ‘The Lincoln Lawyer’ over and over again with equal surprise and I’m never quite sure how it’s going to end. Go figure. Could be early onset Alzheimer’s. Could be the primacy effect where movies I saw closer to the onset of video were just more novel ..until about 1995 when the novelty wore off and I became accustomed to watching hundreds of videos a week with little recollection. In either case ..I’m having a lot less difficulty picking out videos to see for the first time these days.