The Reassuring Universe: 2021

Sunday, August 8, 2021

Reality Gap

Human perception has little to do with reality. People will see what they expect to see. The most powerful influence over people is not in presenting them facts and information, but shaping how they will interpret facts and information.

As an adult the abused child will see threats and react accordingly. The insecure person will perceive disapproval. The religious person will see God's will in events and see people of different opinion as opposing God’s will.

"The eye is the lamp of the body" sums up this human trait to see as we expect to see.

The power of media magnates is not in convincing people by presenting distorted information and falsehoods. Their power is in making people willing to accept the distortions and falsehoods.

We can see and hear with suspicion, with insecurity, with anticipation of threat. Or we can see and hear with hope of seeing beauty, truth, and experiencing acceptance.

Speak truth. Do compassion. But resign yourself to the fact it will all be interpreted and misinterpreted through each individual's lens of experience.

Ask how your own lens distorts your view. Ask how you will influence the experience that will shape the other person's perspective. Ask, and know your answer will likewise be colored and distorted, leaving us to wonder at the veracity of our world, leaving us to anticipate conflict with that other person's distorted and deluded world, leaving us with only forbearance, compassion, tolerance, and forgiveness as our tools to soften the sharp edges of the inevitable conflict.

Conveniently Rational Munitions

The world, unremittingly harsh.

The world, unchangeable.

The world, this world, an expression of the human spirit.

The human spirit, formed in response to the harshness of this world.

The endless cycle, harshness begetting cruelty,

survival demanding indifference.

Excuses abound for our sins.

Reasons aplenty explain our self-absorption.

The endless cycle,

a parent and necessity and social norms driving our individual role

in the great churning engine,

the malevolent engine,

the malignant engine

of personal and societal

cause and effect

excusing, always excusing, our actions and inactions.

We, the individual molecules

in the fuel driving the engine,

our profit and pleasure,

our security and safety,

the molecular characteristics

sustaining the ignition of the fuel

to drive the next cycle

of fear turned to violence,

pain turned to vengeance.

All natural,

all predictable,

all so conveniently rational,

the mines and munitions,

the purchases and profligacy.

Yet against all reason and rationality,

the engine is throttled,

the cycle restrained.

A response tempered,

a temper held,

a hold become embrace…

Something unbefitting the ethos of profit and patriotism,

something resisting the irresistible compulsion of mob and marketers,

a spark of compassion,

a flicker of forgiveness…...

The engine runs as it always has,

but not without limit,

not uncontrollably.

A cheek turned,

a debt forgotten,

a small meal shared…..

and the great churning engine is revealed to produce

more than its fetid exhaust of wars and vendettas and consumption.

The cycle produces something that escapes the cycle,

something enduring after the machine of this world has passed,

something of Beauty,

something of Light,

something of the Love that set the machine in motion.

Copyright 202 Don Ray. feel free to print and share.

Threads of Smoke

Life. Death. Defining time.

Moments gone before recognized,

cherished only in their departure.

There is no holding them.

There is no conveying them.

We see them only as fading images,

each already past,

leaving its dimming imprint,

dissolving to wipe the sand clean,

making room for the next experience,

a curious assemblage of rapidly fading images

sewn together with wisps of smoke

to create what we call

our life.

Pre-dawn ragged blanket

Pre-dawn Ragged Blanket

Oh the enormity of it all!…..and that said about even the infinitesimal fraction of existence we perceive…..all focused around our own miniscule perception of our individual life experience.

Something as trivial as a slightly uncomfortable temperature suffices to erase any thought of the struggles of the immediately surrounding world, much less the greater world.

The enormity of it all…..the intensity of every life experience…….every fleeting life experience…...all God's Creation culminating in each sensation of each moment lived…….until to our inexplicable surprise the life ends.

If anything should not be a surprise it is the ending of life, yet each time it never seems quite normal, never quite as it should

The intensity of it all…...unless never experienced, never perceived, never discerned.

Perhaps it is necessary to reel in the discernment, to temper the intensity of life. Perhaps there is no peace to be found in that doomed intensity. Turn from it, dampen the senses, pull a ragged blanket over awareness, like the homeless do on the cold nights in the park. It is necessary, a little tempering, a little distraction, from the overwhelming intensity of doomed life…...for now…..while the dawn is such a faint, almost but not quite imperceptible distant glow.

Freedom From Opportunities

Freedom From Opportunities

Dark. Light in the dark.

Run toward it!

Cold. A touch of warmth.

Hold it!

Don't pretend you wouldn't,

wouldn't run toward light,

wouldn't grasp that warmth.

Opportunities, opportunities,

shaping our destiny,

sculpting our lives.

It is in the absence of opportunities,

then we see what we will do with the life we are given,

then we see who we are,

when not tempted,

not led,

when left to our own devices.

Friday, August 6, 2021

The Deep Bass Voice of God

The Deep Bass Voice of God

I read of another charismatic church in Texas, another young jeans-clad wannabe messiah getting piles of money from politicians and businessmen to fund another institution to spread their gospel, disguised as The Gospel.

The young followers claim "they are called" as they wander streets and parking lots telling strangers God loves them. In other words, they are delivering the message I would hope to deliver, but with a different methodology.

I am intrigued by such church phenomenon. Maybe I am envious of their clarity of mission. But my experience of fundamentalist church services and modern “praise” services and political rallies also leaves me acutely aware of my visceral response to modern amplified invocations of a high decibel "holy spirit".

Those followers are good folks, sincere folks, and their pastoral and political leaders would be the first to know, even if not the first to admit, those folks are being manipulated. Was I any less manipulated in those guilt-fostering, emotionally not-so-subtle church services of my childhood? Were the villagers at an ancient Egyptian temple ceremony any less manipulated? How about the villagers in those Papua New Guinea tribal ceremonies I witnessed?

Why would God need masks or altars or guilt or amplifiers to reach us? What is it we feel in those invocations of fear, ecstasy, guilt, awe, and vibrating chest cavity? Why do we want to be manipulated? If the manipulation opens our heart and mind to Creator and Holy Spirit and Love, is it necessarily bad? If it's not bad, why am I so consistently appalled and repelled by it?

I am repelled by use of such ritual - visual - and aural tools because they are so consistently used to deceive and manipulate innocent people to the benefit of the shaman - priest - preacher - politician - and despot.

Authentic and enduring faith is not inspired by deep bass vibrations, whether from log drums in a jungle village or a 1200 Watt subwoofer. These are tools to be used to excite chimpanzees, not the children of God.

The adherents feel called. Once the speakers go quiet and the spotlights go dark, we'll see to what the worshipers were called, and by whom.

Wednesday, August 4, 2021

Alate Assist

ALATE ASSIST

There from the north arises a matrimonial flight of ants! Who would have imagined?! The stones are covered with busy little ants. Colony entrances glisten with silver wings.

What a wonderful surprise! Thank You! Thank You! Thank You!

They launch several at a time, nicely visible against the gray sky.

There is a gentle flow to this launch, a quiet elegance, not quite the frenetic spectacle of the launches of the larger ants of the other colony I used to watch this time of year.

What delightful surprises the loving Source provides.

One little winged guy has a terrible time. He walks and flops and spins in circles. But now away toward the sky! Finally the hard effort pays off!

I did not think the little flopping alate could manage it.

Another walks and walks. Wings buzz to no avail. Too damaged? Too defective? I pray for him, and pray for all life and all living things trying to fulfill their essence…. but the prognosis looks grim for this little guy. Look at the effort! So long s/he has struggled. S/he will have no energy left even if it can fly. Such a majestic struggle, the struggle of the ages. I am as helpless as the alate (winged ant with the role of mating to spread the colony’s DNA outside the colony), unable to assist. On it walks…..eventually managing a pathetic flight of a few centimeters (inches).

Finally I cannot help myself. Clearly the situation is hopeless. Clearly this flyer has not the strength, or has some defect. It has tried too long without success for any hope to remain. It's desperate walk is taking it under the thyme plant where even if it could get airborne it would promptly become entangled in overhanging leaves.

I let it crawl onto my finger. I lift it up out of the wood’s shadow that keeps the stone cool and I hold the struggling alate in the morning sun. Wings vibrate in a silver blurr. It wobbles off the edge of my hand and flutters down toward the waiting stone……..and then rises! It rises! Given just that brief moment to learn to fly before being again grounded, it rises!

Calm and serenity will have to wait for another moment, for this is a moment of jaw dropped wonder and joy!

Let life rise, let us all rise, and let us be for each other the aid and uplifting to allow bodies and spirits to soar.

Stream of Consciousness

STREAM OF CONSCIOUSNESS

There is of course only consciousness. Our individual consciousness, this ensemble of experiences and choices, seamlessly flows through the temporal reality that provides the opportunities for contact and interaction with other individual elements of consciousness.

This material world accommodatingly provides some nominally rational continuity to facilitate that contact and interaction among we elements of consciousness.

It is all only consciousness, nothing but consciousness, though the material reality that serves as connective tissue binding together the elements of consciousness would seem to have the flexibility of concrete.

All our attention to the material world at the exclusion of prioritizing the Unity bond with other elements of consciousness misses the point, neglecting the opportunity for connection provided by that material world.

We have only consciousness, incarcerated and blinded as it may be in this carnal existence, and that consciousness attains instantiation only to the degree it experiences interaction and Unity with Consciousness as a Whole (succinctly captured in the appellation “Christos”). The opportunity for that interaction arises in no small part through the opportunities for interaction with other individual elements of consciousness (i.e. people).

The actual structure of Reality?:

The foundation Word, the Source, that preceded this particular version of time in which we reside,
The individual elements of consciousness (us) that in the matrix of their interactions form the structure of the Whole Consciousness
The continuity of flow of each of those elements as they segway through the ages that we perceive as our lives,
The transition that we call death, though it is the antithesis of ending,

This is the structure of Reality, a Reality necessarily flowing through the girders of this temporal/ physical framework , but a Reality not to be mistaken for being just this temporal/physical framework.

Don't be enslaved, deluded, and deceived by the temporal and physical and carnal. Use the temporal to create the eternal, apply the physical to touch the spiritual, accept this carnal as opportunity to embrace each others’ souls.

Tuesday, August 3, 2021

In Need of Meadow

IN NEED OF MEADOW

On north ridge, lying in a meadow, first time here.

Had been up on this ridge one other time, long enough ago I had forgotten it.

A falcon cries in the distance. I let warmth of morning sun wash over me and wash away the tension of unrelenting human interaction.

There could be critters up here. This is a place between trails, a place of sanctuary, a place untouched and safe. Grass turns to white gold as the sun rises.

We are instantly late in the season, red berries having appeared overnight, grass seeded out and dry overnight.

I seek repentance from this life of following and going with the world’s flow, but I know not which way to turn.

Here I can smell the dry grass. So long since noticing that smell! Why does even the potential for presence of people send Nature and Spirit into hiding?

Sounds!

A deer?

A bird?

Senses awaken to natural responses, no ambiguity or secrets in the threats posed in Nature,

no deception or subterfu

No hidden agendas in Nature,

or so I pretend.

An open meadow brings some clarity of vision,

some visual perspective across distance not blocked by obscuring and tangled growth.

We need meadows in our lives,

we need a chance to get some momentary distance,

some perspective.

We need a moment to not have to anticipate what is behind that tree or bush,

to not have to calculate what underlies that comment and motive.

Tangled and obscuring are the forests of our societies,

interactions the grabbing branches,

conversations the ensnaring vines.

Seek a meadow,

seek perspective,

find a spot of sunlight unshadowed by demands and expectations.

Bask for a moment in clarity of light and sky,

even if social woods remain dark and confusing upon reentering

At least you will know there is Light,

and that the dark and confusing tangle of forest does occasionally yield to bright glade and clear vision.

Following the Unseeable

FOLLOWING THE UNSEEABLE
Copyright 2021 Don Ray. Feel free to print and share.

There are always ways to give. There are always ways to give mo

There is always the established order that provides service and charity. There is always the need for change and revolution and a new order.

Follow your calling, knowing it will not be your only calling. Follow God’s will, knowing it will be obscured and contradictory.

Follow…...and lead. The children of God must do both, and do both humbly. Let established orders and institutions change you, then go on to change them and change the world.

Let Love and the sustaining Spirit carry you through the confusion, knowing that the greatest faith is forged not by following unambiguous instructions written in flaming letters pointing down a well lit path. The greatest faith is forged and polished in the dark and noise and ambiguity and uncertainty that is real life, life demanding we participate in ongoing Creation not by following specific instructions to accomplish a dictated design, but by making the free choices incumbent on the children of God in playing their role in creating that design, a design that will be erected upon holy foundations, foundations established by the Word that was before Time.

Tuesday, July 27, 2021

Trust Your Robot

TRUST YOUR ROBOT

On the question of whether robots and machines that listen and sympathize will prove adequate to comfort the human soul. The following builds on previously published concepts of the ontological nature of consciousness, Unity, and Reality. For readers lacking the earlier explanations, the first three paragraphs may be a bit perplexing. Not to worry. By paragraph four we’re independent of previous material and back to practical considerations.

In the absence of Choice there is no real consciousness.

In the absence of consciousness there is no Deep Unity. In the absence of Deep Unity there is no Deep Reality Interaction and hence no eternal Love.

Nothing substantial is projected into eternity by interface with a machine that has no Choice in its interaction. The machine’s words and responses may be the exact ones desired, but that exact perfection and accommodation will be as empty and meaningless as any lying sycophantic person seeking to ingratiate.

I recently read of a robot that is selling well, a robot that seems to listen. That such a device would become popular testifies to our desperation to communicate and be heard and be accepted.

The robot poses no threat of rejection or criticism or correction. Lordy, wouldn’t that be wonderful? I wonder if that is why writing appeals to me? I have long known my writing would be at risk of totally changing if I expected that anyone would read it in my lifetime. Do I treat the keyboard the way people treat their comforting empathy robot? No doubt my writing is driven to some degree by the need to express and communicate.

How desperately we all want to be heard! How desperately we want to make ourselves, our thoughts and ideas and feelings and experiences, a part of something bigger, a part of someone else’s thoughts and experiences.

So we talk to people who are not really listening and we pay people to listen to us and now we can buy robots programmed to trick us into believing they are listening.

All the while we just need to listen to each other.

To what degree can we or should we go to get people to listen? Isn’t what we have to say the most important thing in the universe? It certainly is the most important thing our youniverse.

So people buy listening robots and I type. The response from the machine is far more affirming and encouraging than most human responses, or lack thereof.

Desperate to be heard, we prattle on to the exclusion of ever listening, rendering mutually mute our efforts at communication. Left with bored friends, coworkers, family, and spouses, we can soon add bored robots to the list. Loathe to listen, we know our stories must be better than theirs. So the talk goes on, and robot sales go up, and tweets and blogs and Facebook pages profligately propagate.

Never has so much been said and so little heard.

We talk and type and text to everyone and everything within reach….

……..except God.

Thursday, July 15, 2021

Successful Disaster

Successful Disaster

So we muddle through our choices, in hindsight seeing how disastrous they were, in hindsight seeing how miraculously they turned out, fortunately in ways we never could have foreseen.

Worldly disasters entangled with spiritual miracles….that's about the best you can hope for in following the Spirit and Purpose. Crucifixions and resurrections is another way to put it.

Fortunately in our youth we don't see that. It is necessary to have visions of worldly success. But as failures and disasters compile we begin to notice the little details we never anticipated, a life affected, a life touched, a life saved. Our career and relationship disasters slowly are revealed as lessons and opportunities, and our grandiose plans begin to wane in submission to The Grandiose Plan.

There is relief as well as resignation in this experience. This learning process is not about giving up hope, but giving up your life to the Greater that was guiding it all along.

Worldly success is not all it's cracked up to be. Fortunately it will elude the grasp of most of us.

Another Clean Start

What's left, when every plan has failed?

What remains after every hope is dashed?

What endures when every expectation has collapsed?

The lessons.

The humility.

The clean start.

The clean slate.

The purity of nothing.

You are finally out of the way.

Now something beyond your limited imagination can unfold.

Now go forth, having come forth from the wreckage.

Hopelessness can be liberating.

Revel in your powerlessness.

A Higher Perspective

The ants flew this morning on their colony's annual matrimonial breeding flight!

Now this afternoon an alate (winged ant) lands on me as I write! What a little surprise blessing! What a marvelous and miraculous focal point of life, that shiny black body with silvery wings.

Life arising from life. We see life the way we do because of our experience of consciousness as an individual. Viewed without the lens of individual experience Life becomes a wholeness, a flowing reaction. Viewed from a distance, life is akin to a fire or a rising cumulus cloud, complex but comprehensible self-driving exothermic chemical reactions and thermo-dynamic processes.

Take away our individual awareness of pain and fear and death, and Life becomes a wondrous phenomenon to marvel at as it spreads across the planet and changes and evolves and adapts. Viewed in detachment, all the carnivorous consumption and competitive combat become academic functionalities in a localized entropy storm. .

But being part of that consumption and combat makes us look at life with other than detached academic objectivity. We know all too well what it feels like to be prey and target. Curiosity at the ability of chains of nucleic acids to self-replicate becomes our personal imperative to replicate.

A biochemical process on a singularly rare blue marble orbiting a propitiously located star has been infused with conscious awareness, and henceforth demands that it, at least the individual elements of conscious experience, i.e. humanity, be taken into account in any speculation about universal Purpose and meaning.

The little alate still sits on my shirt. Its wings are now extended out perpendicular to its body instead of held along the length of its body. I touch it. It does not move in response. Its life seems to have expired since landing on me minutes ago.

I doubt it mused about meaning or Purpose. I suspect it unambiguously, wholly, and completely knew its meaning and Purpose, and that was enough. I, on the other hand, am not so sanguine about the whole Life, death, meaning, and Purpose thing, so I keep closely watching the tiny proboscis for signs of movement and life. I watch to no avail.

Now expired, but she-he-it did fly, earlier this morning, a triumphant launch carrying the colony's hopes into the unattainable sky. The colony will never know this particular genetic package of hope lies now upside-down on a purple t-shirt.

This morning I cleaned out old files with records of students I had taught. Those students would now be in their thirties. Did my lessons help launch their lives on successful careers? How many have kids of their own? How many are under indictment? How many are dead? I will never know, just aa the ant colony cannot know the fate of its hundreds of winged messengers launched this morning.

Surely localized, individual, and personal meaning and purpose must be part and parcel of universal meaning and Purpose. But the extrapolation from this season or this semester to the eternal seems deucedly indirect, leaving us wondering, if we can ask the question must there necessarily be an answer?

My little deceased alate buddy would chuckle at my naivety. Maybe asking the question is the meaning and Purpose. Maybe that's our version of the ant-colony's' matrimonial flight. Let us launch forth in our conjectures, a triumph of this exothermic self-propogating life process, launching our questions and speculations, landing we know not where, but fulfilling, perchance even defining, even dare we say choosing, meaning and Purpose for the individual elements of conscious awareness infusing the sheen of organic material coating this exquisitely rare blue marble.

Saturday, July 10, 2021

Lessons of the Mystery

LESSONS OF THE MYSTERY

Lessons,

life lessons,

learned and taken so seriously,

lessons for the individual,

no one else.

Lessons,

life lessons,

never to be shared,

except with others who already learned them.

There is a depth of understanding, a depth of seeing and feeling and experiencing,

that is of little use to and little interest for this world.

Promise mysteries solved and people will listen.

Pronounce that all is mystery and shall so remain,

and watch the faces turn away.

Mystery, wrapped in life.

We love a mystery, but only with solution.

That’s why we dare not look too closely at life,

for then we see just how inscrutable it is.

But the looking, the looking,

is what makes us human.

The looking, that defines us as children of God,

even of a well hidden, or at least disguised, God.

Hurry, hurry,

it seems so long ago,

surely there is little time left.

This gift, this moment, is too precious,

too ripe with potential,

to let slide.

But there are no answers, at least none that any want to hear,

and none that solve the Mystery.

But they do ease the pain, don’t you think?

Listen!

Was that a hint? One has to listen to hear them, you know.

They are always whispered, and never repeated.

Always nebulous, discrete, private,

the answers to the Mysteries.

They are not to be shared,

not due to some cosmic dictate,

but because no one will listen.

Listen.

Keep listening.

Hear the sounds of speculations rattle to and fro within the Mystery.

All you will hear is the Mystery laughing…..

but it is not a scornful laugh.

It is almost playful, as if we take the Mystery much too seriously.

It is glad we explore it, welcomes our investigations and speculations,

our philosophies and theologies,

like a parent smiling at the crawling infant’s explorations

about the room.

It is healthy, a part of growth, these explorations,

this crawling and putting things in our mind.

It is serious business, this growing up.

It is playful and joyful, and fraught with dangers.

It seems so long ago,

we started exploring, started crawling, started asking,

but there is time, and there is beyond time,

so no need to fret or hurry.

The Mystery abides,

welcoming our explorations,

answers awaiting, but only once we begin to crawl.

Recognizing Beauty

RECOGNIZING BEAUTY

Homestead creek 07:02

The creek is running! Barely, but running! The surface trickle just barely makes it past the wood jam, fizzling out in less than a meter. There is no sound. The surface ripples the tiniest bit, making the sky's reflection flicker. But it's grown from yesterday!...thanks to the remarkable string of daily rains. Thank You, thank You, thank You for this symbol of the inexorable return of Life in spite of our destructiveness.

As I walked out the back door before sunrise, a coyote concert! Little family was loud and clear from the south! Upon reaching coyote point I never saw them though. Now four mornings since I saw them.

The mountains had a slow motion cloud fall silently and grayly slipping over ridges from the south, a rare alpine treat.

A couple of bucks in the valley were trying out this year's antlers with each other.

Sublime beauty. Thank You. Thank You. Thank You.

Would anyone read these poor words and experience a touch of that beauty? Would anyone wish they had been there?

If so, why were more people not up there this morning and every morning? Why do I not bother describing such scenes to anyone? Does our limited ability to perceive beauty make beauty boring?

We prefer adventure and tales with conclusions. That's a problem if it keeps us from experiencing beauty. If we cannot perceive the beauty in Nature we cannot discern it in ourselves. If we cannot recognize loving Creator in Creation we will not recognize our souls as children of that Creator. The value of Nature's beauty reflects our own value, as we arise from and are integral part of the same Source fulfilling the same Purpose.

A cold indifference toward Nature inevitably is companion to a cold indifference toward humanity. One either looks for beauty and Spirit in everything or turns from beauty and Spirit in all aspects of life.

Looking for Beauty does not mean pretending it is there when it is not. It means having eyes and heart open and receptive to the living Spirit of the Source, especially when it appears in unexpected form.

Imagine seeing. Imagine wanting to see.

Pachinko Minds

Our minds rattle through their pachinko (a Japanese vertical pinball game) path of development, bouncing this way and that, sometimes literally bouncing, starting from circumstances of childhood. From that starting point the aggregate human perception evolves as inexorably as biological evolution, a progression (as distinguished from progress) dictated by a statistical mish-mosh of influences subtle and jarring. Along this path, a new philosophy, religion, or life-perspective may be as useful as tapioca to a tomato..

The fracking field worker beaten by their alcoholic father, the woman raised with a mother’s emotional denigration, these and countless victims of human parents, each and all of us, have trodden their spiritual evolutionary path to their specific point that can accept only certain forms of spiritual nourishment.

Evolutionary selection also shapes spiritual messages, incomprehensible foundational truth being filtered, distilled, and distorted to accommodate the capacity of the populace.

An accidental mutation in a random environment allows a lucky species to thrive. An eccentric teaching in a destabilized society allows a religion to take root.

Ironically the statistically random results are majestic, revealing a structure of Life embedded in the primal foundations of the universe, unveiling loving Purpose patiently waiting on the free choice of its battered and misled children.

Friday, July 9, 2021

Summary of Life

SUMMARY OF LIFE

What would I tell anyone? What would I tell myself?

Life is surreal. It doesn't have surreal episodes as exceptions. It is just surreal.

You will spend most of your life trying to belong and to survive. You will pretty much do whatever society and situation demand to facilitate belonging and surviving.

Of necessity you will erect curtains of explanations to convince yourself you understand and to make sense of it all. The curtains will be thick and will grow heavier with time in the effort to hide the fact they are woven out of imagination and wishful thinking.

The belonging and connections so desperately sought will exist at the most superficial and fragile level, but great effort will be irredeemably invested in the effort to maintain these fragile facades so easily rendered to shreds by a trivial disagreement or misunderstanding.

Somewhere and somehow through all this, you, a kernel of conscious experience - information integration - and uninformed choices, will endure. You will be shaped, and you will do some shaping. The surreal nature of worldly life will prove to be a malleable matrix of circumstance that seems to chaotically and exasperatingly rage about you, but through it all is providing exactly the opportunities for Choice that will serve your growth…..or not…..that growth part is entirely up to you.

That's it. That's the realistic graduation ceremony speech you will never hear. At first it seems a dour and discouraging outlook. You will find most realistic outlooks are dour and discouraging.

But look a little deeper…..at life, not the silly speech. There is a freedom in all life’s seeming constraints, your ultimate freedom of Choice of response to those constraints. There is growth, which is to say the essence and boundless potential of Life. There is inescapable, if momentarily subsumed, awareness of the imperative of belonging and connection. There is a capacity offered, which you can accept or reject, to see beauty.

All in all, the dour and discouraging outlook turns out to be the facade, the deception, the distortion. This world can afford to be surreal because it is so fleeting. You on the other hand endure, as does the potential for the belonging and connection that you consciously or unconsciously crave. Make the inescapable choices along the way. Shape your nature and being, then discover you are actually slowly revealing your nature and being, an essence eternal, an essence always belonging and that always belonged.

You will keep trying to belong and survive, as you must. Along the way let yourself be born, born through the surreal storms, born into what you sought from the beginning.

This world is surreal. Love is real.

Wednesday, July 7, 2021

Coyote Tales and red moon omen

COYOTE PUPS

Downy woodpeckers fledged, so back to seeing the coyotes in the morning.

This morning for the coyote pups it is wrestling, biting day. Occasional yips of protest.

Some have treasures!

Of course the other pup’s treasure is always the best.

Tug-toy! Exactly as I played with my Brutus dog! Rapid head shakes. Slower, longer head yanks. The pups are even colored like Brutus.

Wrestling and flopping and twisting on and in yuccas.

So glad they are still here. Thank You. Thank You. Thank You.

08:15

All out of sight. Where do they go? None lying out in the clear spots as a few days ago. How unproductively I thrill to the viewing of new life this spring, downies, coyotes, and geese.

The moon was a sickly red last night high in the sky, an ominous portent from many fires.

The world’s reset button is being hit.

The younger goose family has its white markings, though still fuzzy. The babies still plonk down like babies and lie close to one another.

The pond’s southwest spring has quit running. Homestead spring is dry downstream of my tree. It still trickles under the bridge. People passing through recognize none of this.

Next day

Coyote point. 06:20

Brief glimpse of a pup running from the den up across the dam trail, then disappearing into the woods. I hope s/he stays out of trouble. There's a whining-yipping coming from over the rise. I hope one of the little coyote family is not in trouble.

Yesterday briefly saw two coyote pups, one lying at ninety degrees across the other on top of the den. Then they disappeared into brush.

Of course I will miss the little guys after their inevitable and necessary departure. I will miss the time they have given me, the excuse and opportunity to indulge in this sunrise time on the ridge. I will miss the play and rough-housing and tug-toy games.

How effectively Nature hides from us, out of necessity of course. Millenia of our killing it have taught it well. Millenia of it trying to kill us taught us well. Yet for all that mutual killing we survive(ed) only at the behest of Nature. Its predilection for hiding from us is not a good sign, for that portends Nature turning its face entirely from us, finally drawing a line at the assault of dams and poisons, bullets and heat.

Look to Nature, if you can still find it. Pray for its forgiveness. Pray we're not too late.

Sunday, July 4, 2021

Fledging of Downy Woodpeckers

THE FLEDGING OF DOWNY WOODPECKERS

Watching downy woodpecker babies. Skipping coyotes this morning in case downies fledge. At 05:30 they were quiet but by 05:40 they were noisy.

But the cool of the morning does not appeal to them. They are not sticking their heads out nearly as often or for as long as in the heat of yesterday afternoon.

Their heads fill the doorway! I mean fill it!....as if it is barely big enough.

Little boy is hogging the window but sister puts in appearances for breakfast.

The brother with his scarlet punk "do" is pecking! He already knows he's a woodpecker! I noticed a new little divot at the bottom of the door-frame and I wondered if the babies had made it, as unlikely as that seemed. But bigger than anything, once brother started appearing in the doorway he would often do a little ratatat into the wood around the edge of the door!

Now when he sticks his head out he twists his neck to look down and sideways and straight up, visually exploring the new three dimensional universe that awaits his bold entry.

08:16

Brother seems agitated. In and out. In and out.

Dad arrives with a green bug. Dad has to work and work to finally get it to the sister.

I am surprised there are any bugs left in the county at the rate parents shovel them into these ravenous chicks.

I don't want to take my eyes off the show. Brother seems aware of my presence, retreating when I make a motion.

Sister is also agitated, squeezing her body through the narrow opening. I get claustrophobic just watching them.

Mom teases, holding the bug away, making sister come out a little further.

Everything encompassed in this moment, the entire universe, all Life, all right here, right now, an interminable now.

A calm, a tension, a peace, a suspense, anticipation and fear, all here, all now.

Babies stretch further out. Parents keep feeding.

Sis stays out a long time. It’s hard to see how they can squeeze their bodies through that tiny passage. I wonder if they literally could become trapped if they grow much more, but then remember the parents got in and out of that opening while building this home.

Sis has never kept her head out this long. I wondered if brother had fledged while I was away. But no, eventually, in a squeezing, wrestling exchange, she goes in and brother comes out.

Looking, looking, down and around, up and around,

Mom delivers again, waits, sits by the doorway….. The sense of calm increases when she arrives, in black and white, like a flying nun.

Exchange again, now sis replaces brother in the doorway, both anxious, both squirming. Hot sun glares off the trunk of the aspen. Sis has a softer cheep, not as loud, not as sharp.

It seems they stretch a little further each time they appear, or is that my wishful imagination.

The pauses with no face in the entrance are now due not to nap time but to the wrestling exchange of one trying to get around the other.

Surely this flight will happen, it must happen. More and more they extend out. How long can this continue?

Sis is also pecking at the wood of the entrance. She’s got almost half her body out! Now back in.

Mom relents and comes to the door to feed her, a reward for the effort. Brother’s peeps are muted by sis filling the passage. But he’s in there, also wanting out.

This fledge might go now….

She flies! Down at a 45 degree angle! I saw it! Thank You! Thank You! Thank You!

Brother finally appears, seeming perplexed. Looking around. Much quieter than he has been, a little shocked and confused that sister is gone. He’s the most subdued...well,,,,ever.

Dad comes and gives him a snack. He almost seems more relaxed. Thank God no jays or magpies were around when sis fledged.

Oh life!

Brother remains in the doorway, occasionally peepsing, but with long pauses to absorb the new situation and consider his fate and destiny.

All here, the universe, all Life, in the singularity of this eternal moment.

Dad returns to feed brother. Brother seems not agitated…. or?....he stretches out a little further. A little further. Dad coaches from a branch of the nearby dead aspen tree.

Brother remains though. In and out. But less agitated than earlier. I immediately lost sight of sister when she went down into the bushes and ground cover.

She wanted out! Brother sits quietly. Now more active, in and out, in and out, as if trying to find a way to get through the narrow opening. Such a huge world awaits

Surely soon. Where is sister? Such blessing to witness this. Such a right and holy living event.,,,,,unless you’re a bug.

There’s mom. She’s working the nearby stump for snacks. The parents don’t seem at all excited about all this…..unlike the finch family I watched where dad especially got absolutely vocally ecstatic upon fledging of the family.

Brother has returned to asking for lunch. Or?....is that sister? She seems a little fluttery! It is sister 1! She’s working up the trunk! She must have landed at its base Now she reaches the plastic I wrapped around the trunk to protect the robin’s nest from Cal kitty. She’s all fuzzy! But she knows how to hold on in classic downy pose to a vertical trunk! Too good!

Brother’s acting just as he did all morning. Maybe a little further out now. There’s sis again. She’s looking for lunch! Look at that! Oh, she flutters down out of sight. She can hop and climb but not fly.

There’s another little girl in the nest doorway! Two sisters!

Mom’s chirping warnings. I don’t know why.

Babies remain inside, deep, enjoying their new spacious accommodations.

The fledgling again makes it up to the plastic on the trunk, and is then bamboozled by the plastic, trying to peck at it. It’s pitiful.

She does a great job getting up and around the trunk! She wants to go higher.

Such a beautiful little girl!

There is not a hint of more fledging in the offing. Nobody in the entrance.

“Number One” tries to hop higher onto the plastic, which only sends her fluttering down again. Oh what a sad unintended consequence! She knows what to do! It should work! She should get up into a branch! She’s already back Now brother sticks his head out. NO question, there is a second sister. Amazing!

Dad arrives and feeds brother. He’s set. Why leave this deal?

Peepsing sound has returned, from deep inside. It’s as if the system dictates someone leave to make room, spreading out the departure fledgings, perhaps to optimize the chance of one hitting an opportune time.

Mom feeds, now inside the door, not trying to draw anyone out.

Sister one hops out of the bushes, under the shade of the car, and further to the edge of the yard. On the ground, in contrast to on the tree, she looks fluffy and awkward and vulnerable. I think I hear a parent peepsing from over there. I go look but cannot see her. That’s probably the last I’ll ever see of her.

Meanwhile at the door no one is visible. The usual chattering continues. But the frantic heads out of the entrance are no more. It really is as if someone had to go. Now the ones still there are content to stay inside.

Sister two sticks her head out for feeding. Mom obliges. Now sister two keeps her head out.

Oh what’s happening to that brave first baby!

Looks out the doorway are now brief. And it’s almost always a sister, not the brother.

I’m glad I skipped watching the coyotes this morning! But now I don’t think there’s a pressing reason to keep watching the downies.

Wow, what a drama. What an unexpected turn of events.

Brother puts in an appearance. The feeding is now rapid fire, mom and dad making quick sequence appearances, like I’ve never seen. Hardly a minute elapses between visits. I hope someone is looking after sister 1.

Brother is just active enough to keep me watching, just in case.

It is interesting what a sense of anticipation there was before that first fledging. Some sense, unjustified by any visual evidence, that something major was about to unfold.

Oh look at that! He was way out! Then went in. Now out again. Of course, this could go on for days.

He’s coming in and out though, quickly, as if something might happen. I’m drained from the first fledging.

Brother seems to have overcome his shock upon the departure of his sister.

They have the longest, flicking tongue, almost like a snake.

For a moment brother almost flopped out, before scrambling back in.

He’s about as active as he was this morning.

Lordy, what a commitment, to fledge!

It can’t be a good sign that his sister never came back to report on what’s out there. Man, he was almost out! Now out! Flying! He really flew! Up Across the street! No flopping or descending!

Now another brother! My gosh! How big must that apartment be?!

What a show.

He’s got his head out, but doesn’t seem as frantic yet.

There’s an interesting building of activity before each fledging. Now he’s getting more and more frequent in his extensions and retreats.

I can’t believe I’m getting to watch this. Had it happened yesterday I would have missed it as I was doing volunteer support.

I can’t believe the parents managed to distribute food among four siblings!

This is like watching a clown car, as if there is a hole in the base of the trunk and babies keep entering and coming up to exit from the nest.

. It must be 1.5 hours since the first sister fledged.

Bother 2 (I can’t believe I’m saying that.) is keeping his head out for extended periods. Now he’s really leaning out!

There is no justification for my sitting and watching this. But surely it is sublimely right. How could I not watch?

What suspense! Any second a new life could fly into the world.

Yep, back and forth, back and forth. In and out, in and out. Decision, decision.

Little lurches forward.

Feeding

The red on the brothers’ heads really does look like a sloppy punk mohawk die job.

After feeding, this guy is not too squirmy. He seems settled in for a little longer.

10:52.

No appearance of the sister. Brother’s hogging the doorway. Now in and out, in and out. Not too far. Feeding. Dropped it! Darn! Disappointing. Didn’t quite make the transfer.

That may be part of the parents not sticking the food too far in as a way to get babies out.

11:00. All quiet.

Feeding. brother comes out. Sister comes out. They are nicely exchanging times at the door. And often staying inside.

There is no convincing anyone to enjoy such events. I suppose the world would not function if too many people spent too much time celebrating such events. Though I’m not sure the world would be any worse off.

These are unjustifiable joys, joys not an obligation of social convention. Peculiarly individual joys. These are rich joys, impossible to convey. Hence they are empowering joys. And they are joys of life.

To the few capable, or willing, to savor such joys, I encourage and commend you. The world will not do so. But I pray you to hold on to your capacity to savor the beauties of life. They are real and enduring and nourish the soul.

The world will discourage such delights. Sorrow for the world.

Watch enthralled as Nature proceeds at its own pace. Practice patience. Have faith that you will be sustained by the Creator of that Nature and Creator of you.

Look around, see, just as the baby downy is doing now with its head out the door. Look around, all directions. Know wonders, and know a cornucopia of them is right here and now.

Sister 2 is way out. Not backing up, not returning.

Staying out. Not letting brother 2 have a look.

Food begging continues. She’s active. In and out. Again, in and out.

Again. Again. Again. But now as far out. Winds must be intimidating. They com in gusts.

I can’t take my eyes off her. I now know how unexpectedly these launches can happen.

Feeding. Way out. Almost away. No. Back in. Looked like she got scared of being out so far.

But now in and out again. And in and out. Life happens ins such a flash, you dare not take your eye off it. It teases and tempts and then the flash of that moment of jumping into a new universe.

Oh, little family. Precious beyond words.

Too much invested in these little downies? Of course. Indefensible. But such rich rewards.

11:22

Sister 2 won’t relinquish the window.

Out a bit further! Feeding! But not launched. She really reaches out when mom or dad arrive. Now brother 2 appears, finally. In and out, in and out.

Sister 2’s position was so ready to launch!

Brother 2 says she had her chance. His turn now.

How long can I stare at that tree trunk?!

16:04

Before the first two fledgings, the parents would tease the babies with food, getting the little guys to stretch out of the nest.

Immediately after the fledgings, for the remaining two babies, the parents fed them right in the doorway, no stretching or reaching required.

Now in the early evening, dad just made the little brother stretch multiple times to get his dinner.

Next day

07:16

downy routine continues.

Parents are outpacing the eating of the two remaining babies. Sometimes the parents have to wait for a chick to come to the door.

Cool and cloudy this morning. Last night the fledged older brother and sister experienced their first ever rain.

I can hear the babies eating, “smacking their lips” as they smack their bills on whatever bug mom or dad brought.

The little guys seem in no rush to leave. They are quite animated when feeding approaches, stretching way out, but then disappearing entirely. The damp weather may play a role in that.

11:28

Is it worth it? Will it really be such a thrill to see these last two chicks fledge? Oh, it will be a thrill. But there is no way to answer the first question. The time invested is ridiculous. It’s probably too cool and cloudy for them to fledge today.

Every sound sends them back inside. A clunk in the house...back in. A clunk of construction or yard work down the street….back in. How terrifying it must be, the prospect of entering this world! In that regard, fledging, with its preceding prolonged awareness and observation of the world, would be a more terrible experience than even birth.

14:35

Little sister

Mom entices little sister out, holding the food just out of reach.

The baby gets stuck! She got too far out! The opening is a one way hole. Her wings are stuck! She finally gets one wing out! After an eternity she gets the second wing out! She holds on to the trunk with both feet, gets up next to the door…...then flies! To the east, like her siblings! No fluttering down like her big sister, but upward flight, gone in a flash. I race down the stairs to try to see where she went, but like her two predecessors, she’s gone, probably never to be seen again.

Next day

06:10

At window, listening for little rapid fire peeps of the fourth and last downy. I think it’s gone

The Reassuring Universe

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Sunday, August 8, 2021

Reality Gap

Conveniently Rational Munitions

Threads of Smoke

Pre-dawn ragged blanket

Freedom From Opportunities

Friday, August 6, 2021

The Deep Bass Voice of God

Wednesday, August 4, 2021

Alate Assist

Stream of Consciousness

Tuesday, August 3, 2021

In Need of Meadow

Following the Unseeable

Tuesday, July 27, 2021

Trust Your Robot

Thursday, July 15, 2021

Successful Disaster

Another Clean Start

A Higher Perspective

Saturday, July 10, 2021

Lessons of the Mystery

Recognizing Beauty

Pachinko Minds

Friday, July 9, 2021

Summary of Life

Wednesday, July 7, 2021

Coyote Tales and red moon omen

Sunday, July 4, 2021

Fledging of Downy Woodpeckers