I rose early this morning. It was warm, for here, and still, as I watered by hand outside. Then, the wind came up, shaking the trees with a shift, and the fog came pouring over the ridge.
I’ve been with the disaster in Nepal and Tibet as we see more examples of climate change, change that isn’t bound by the boundaries of countries. Many who died were on a spiritual pilgrimage. They were circlingMount Kailash, a 33 mile trek.
Again today I’m with the words of Fritz Perls:We don’thavean organism. Wearethe organism.
And this organism extends beyond what we perceive as “ourselves”. We are all affected by what happens on this planet and around it.
I read about the immediate response to the fire near me. Responding resources included two fire crews, four Type 3 wildland fire engines, two water tenders, three helicopters, including MCFD & PG&E Helicopter 6PG, one air attack and two air tankers. Totaling about 70 first responders.
I watched the helicopters going back and forth long after the fire was officially out. The response was quick here, and yet, this country is currently led by an administration wearing blinders, going backwards when it comes to climate change. Each day we’re reminded, whether we live where we’re dealing with unprecedented flooding, tides, winds, or breathing in smoke from another country, another state, or nearby. Climate change is real. How do we come together as a planet in response?
I’m reading Stefan Laeng’s Substack on Charlotte Selver and Sensory Awareness when I notice a helicopter flying back and forth overhead, flying between the ocean and Mt. Tam. Then I smell smoke and get an alert about a vegetation fire. Now, the alert says the wildfire is near Rodeo Beach where I almost went today. Rodeo Beach is right over the ridge, so now my eyes are constantly looking up and watching the sky. I walk outside and take some pictures. I don’t see smoke but I am awake.
My nose is wiggling in the air like Mole inWind in the Willowswhen he’s called outside by the smells and sounds of spring. This is a different smell, not the warm, comforting smell of a fire burning in the fireplace. This is a call to alertness. It’s primal.
I look at what I’ve been reading.
Fritz Perls: We don’thavean organism. Wearethe organism.
Charlotte:So the question would be: is there a state possible in which we can be without watching and without observing—simply awake? Is there a state of awareness possible which is permitted through our whole self from head to foot? So that everywhere we can be aware?
What I have most learned in this work is what it is like to be there for what is needed. It is a very difficult thing to understand that the appetite for having and getting can be transformed into a giving. To the end of her life Elsa Gindler (Charlotte’s teacher) said,“What does this want from me?,” not “What do I want from it?”
I keep returning to Charlotte’s words: What does this want from me? And How do I meet what comes? In this moment, I’m awake, listening, aware, alert. A helicopter travels back and forth overhead. And now the ding of a new alert. Forward progress of the fire is stopped and fire crews will remain on the scene. And helicopters continue to travel back and forth.
Last night, at exactly 9:25—9 to 5—the top of the Empire State Building in New York City lit up pink. The antennas of Chicago’s Willis Tower—formerly the Sears Tower—lit up pink, too. So did the Ferris wheel at the Santa Monica Pier, which also sported a giant pink heart. The Hoan Bridge in Milwaukee; Reunion Tower and other buildings in the Dallas skyline; and the Longfellow, Burns, Fore River, Braga, and Zakim bridges of Boston; Caesar’s Superdome in New Orleans; and, of course, Nashville’s KVB Bridge and historic Metro Courthouse were all lit up in pink last night.
The Arthur Ashe Stadium played “Jolene” during the U.S. Open. Jack White played Jolene in London. Elsewhere in London, the Buckingham Palace band played “9 to 5.”
All this and more for a woman born on January 19, 1946, in Sevier County, Tennessee, in a cabin in the Smoky Mountains without electricity or running water.
I read the tributes to this outstanding human being. I didn’t know that when the pandemic struck in 2020, Dolly donated $1 million to Vanderbilt University Medical Center to fund research on developing the Moderna’s vaccine. She then got her Moderna shot on camera and performed a new version of her hit “Jolene.”
“Vaccine, vaccine, vaccine, vaccine, I’m begging you – please don’t hesitate. Because once you’re dead, then that’s a bit too late.”
Then she rolled up her sleeve and offered one final piece of medical advice:
“Don’t be such a chicken squat. Get out there and get your shot.”
Go to youtube and watch her sing and get her shot. We’ve been looking for someone to shift the tide on this horror show. I’m sorry for her passing, and yet, I thank her for giving us the shot of inspiration we need. She’s giving us our shot of hope and trust in love and care for all!
Thank you, Dolly!
Dolly: If you want the rainbow, you gotta put up with the rain.
I read the news and come to these words by Thich Nhat Hahn:
This, my dear, is the greatest challenge to being alive: to witness injustice in the world and not allow it to consume our light.
And this poem by Thich Nhat Hanh:
For Warmth
I hold my face in my two hands. No, I am not crying. I hold my face in my two hands to keep the loneliness warm— two hands protecting, two hands nourishing, two hands preventing my soul from leaving me in anger.
The bee enters deeply into the flower to nourish and feed.Float and flower deeply rooted in the mud.Go within and shelter and renew in your own Discovery Den. Photo from Filoli Gardens.
I’m struggling with the political atrocities these days.There are so many things one might discuss but I’m going with the essay The Barbie Backlash by Susan Faludi, where she compares Christopher Nolan’s movie “The Odyssey” with Greta Gerwig’s movie “Barbie” both representing the hero’s narrative. She then goes on to discuss how women are treated today.
She writes: Mr. Trump’s return to power resembled a sack of Troy — with women getting the sack.
She goes on and comes to this on the treatment of women in the military in his administration:
Who are these veteran female officers relieved of their commands by the “central casting” (Trump’s words) matinee idol with the gelled hair and pocket hankie, the face that launched a thousand missiles?
Well, for starters, just in the Navy —
Admiral Franchetti: rose from surface warfare officer to command the Sixth Fleet; first woman to lead the Navy and the first permanent female member of the Joint Chiefs of Staff; 40 years of service. Fired from her post, no explanation. Replaced by a man.
Vice Adm. Shoshana Chatfield: commanded the Helicopter Sea Combat units; first female president of the Naval War College and the only woman on NATO’s Military Committee; 37 years of service. Fired from her post, no explanation. Replaced (in an acting capacity) by a man.
Vice Adm. Yvette M. Davids: veteran of Desert Shield, Desert Storm and the Iraq war; commanded a carrier strike group; first woman and first Hispanic officer to head the U.S. Naval Academy; 36 years of service. Relieved of her post, no explanation. Replaced by a man.
Adm. Linda Fagan, Coast Guard; Vice Adm. Nancy Lacore, Navy; Col. Julie Sposito-Salceies, Air Force; Lt. Gen. Telita Crosland, Army; and on and on. These women didn’t claim heroic status; they embodied what the military has traditionally valued: service, teamwork, courage, dedication. But in terms of their mythic warrior life journeys, they are among our Odysseuses. And their elevation has enraged some Odyssean wannabes eager to enshrine what Mr. Hegseth calls “the highest male standard.”
In his book “The War on Warriors,” Mr. Hegseth maintained that so-called D.E.I. hires have made the military weak and “effeminate.” The “standard,” though, has nothing to do with military effectiveness. Were Admirals Franchetti and Chatfield, General Crosland and company fired for not being good enough? Or for being too good, with skills and experience that threatened the restoration of a masculinist culture? Small wonder the photos of Mr. Trump’s cabinet meetings — especially after the departures of Pam Bondi, Kristi Noem, Lori Chavez-DeRemer and Tulsi Gabbard — have begun to resemble the shipboard scenes in “The Odyssey”: men seated around the edge of a long wooden ellipse, with a board table standing in for a galley deck. Pull, boys, pull!
Mr. Trump’s return to power resembled a sack of Troy — with women getting the sack.
We were at the beach yesterday with my son and grandson building in the sand. The high tide will wash their creations away. May the same happen to all that Trump and his cronies have touched.
Sand FishBuilding a sand castle that even protected by a moat, the incoming tide will wash away!
I’m struggling with the political news these days. The bombardment of corruption and lies stuns. How then do we revive, bring in the tide?
I find support in Rebecca Elson’s poem from her book,A Responsibility to Awe. She was diagnosed with non-Hodgkins lymphoma at the age of 29. She continued her writing and scientific work until she died of the disease at the age of 39. I offer the first two stanzas, and then can’t stop and give the whole poem.
ANTIDOTES TO FEAR OF DEATH by Rebecca Elson
Sometimes as an antidote To fear of death, I eat the stars.
Those nights, lying on my back, I suck them from the quenching dark Til they are all, all inside me, Pepper hot and sharp.
No outer space, just space, The light of all the not yet stars Drifting like a bright mist, And all of us, and everything Already there But unconstrained by form.
And sometime it’s enough To lie down here on earth Beside our long ancestral bones:
To walk across the cobble fields Of our discarded skulls, Each like a treasure, like a chrysalis, Thinking: whatever left these husks Flew off on bright wings.
Low tide as the water returnsReflecting in low tideThe intricacy of a flower
Here’s the winning poem in Tricycle Magazine’s Best of Season haiku for Fall 2026.
this world we live in
ten thousand scarecrows on guard
and only one bird
You can find your own interpretation but I consider that we are the one bird that can defeat those who try to scare us with what is false. As birds we fly up, and seeing the whole field, we feast on the truth.
And here are two birds – Great Blue Heron and Great White EgretWe do it for all. Here’s a squirrel at the base of the redwood tree in our yard.
Hannah Arrendt in an interview recorded in 1973 and published after her death:
“If everyone always lies to you, the consequence is not that you believe the lies, but that no one believes anything at all anymore – and rightly so, because lies, by their very nature, have to be changed, to be “re-lied,” so to speak. So a lying government which pursues different goals at different times has to constantly rewrite its own history. That means that the people are deprived not only of their capacity to act, but also of their capacity to think and to judge. And with such a people you can then do what you please.”
It’s time to hold the GOP accountable for their lies and deceit. Be like a bird. Take a bath!
Going through photos from the summer of 2019, I came to a visit to Land’s End, and then to the labyrinth above Rodeo Beach.
Entranced with the pathA ladle aheadBeing heldSo many ways to open and offer a place to restLabyrinth in the Marin Headlands above Rodeo Beach One woman carried and placed these rocks for people to circle in contemplation and prayer.Offerings in the Center
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