I caught these three at play on a windy day in the Thompson Boyce Arboretum in central Arizona east of Apache Junction. It seemed as though the huge agave plant had invited the eucalyptus tree to dance a tango while the palms waved in chorus. The scene reminded me of the Pixar movie, Toy Story, in…
The question is not what you look at, but what you see. ~ Henry David Thoreau. I encountered this dry bear grass waving in the wind that always seems to blow near Flagstaff, Arizona, on a hot summer day. The grass became a metaphor for the winds blowing through my own life. Sometimes we bend…
Each day comes bearing its own gifts. Untie the ribbons. ~Ruth Ann Schabacker Because my weekdays are filled with to-do lists and have-to’s, I cultivate a sense of slowing down on the weekends. The walks I take are longer. The pauses to talk to my cats are more frequent. I smell the air like…
“Thirty spokes meet in a hub Where the wheel isn’t is where it’s useful.” ~Ursula Le Guin, Lao Tsu, Te Ching I am working my way through Ursula Le Guin’s translation of Tao Te Ching by Lao Tzu. She had loved this classic epic, and learned Chinese so that she could portray the work from a…
I started the walk before dawn, collecting clouds as I went. Wispy ones darted in and out of the red rock formations; others nestled in puddles after midnight rains. The pine needles had felted into heavy mats that softened the ground beneath my feet. They created soft nests for windfalls of storm-blown pine cones. The…
What better way to spend an afternoon than with Annie Dillard and the clouds playing peek-a-boo among the red rocks in Sedona! When I find my mind tracing the same tired circles looking for different results, sometimes a walk helps. It grounds me, literally, with each step my feet make on the earth. I find…
We deal with change all the time. Day changes into night. Our body changes from hungry to full. Seasons change. But if the cycle is predictable in many ways it may be comforting. Change can be, in the wider scheme of things like fractals. The farther away is your perspective, the more the overall pattern…
Noise is on my mind recently. I’m convinced that we endure too much of it in honor of our existence here on earth. Sometime it is the raucous chatter of politicians or the screech of advertising pushing aside real words to gain our attention for…
My religion is very simple. My religion is kindness. Dalai Lama The Phoenix Fire Department motto is “Be Nice.” I’ve always liked that. Two words conveying a way of being. Sometimes the hardest things to grasp are the most simple. The gift of a flower. A pat on the back. A compliment to a…