Lingering with Delicate Sitting Ducks

I was examining the shape, color, texture and black underside of mushrooms today. They are visually interesting, a delicate sitting duck in the too-tall grass of August.

Mushrooms are popping up everywhere after the torrential rains in the state. I want to photograph them and see what comes of it.

Modern Photography: Mushrooms dallying in the breeze.

I am including a visual of marbles on fabric to demonstrate what experimenting with colors, textures, shapes and lighting can do in a photograph. I have been exploring these concepts while reading “Photographic Lighting: Learning to See” by Ralph Hattersley.

Consider this thought from Hattersley,

“We insist to ourselves that we see things, whereas our eyes are only constructed to see light. In truth, nothing else is visible.”

Words Like Rain

I am often thinking of words: words of a lover, organized tiles from the Scrabble games; in my head they tumble and fall spilling like warm rain in my hair.

Excerpt from "Romance"
by Claude McKay


To lie at full length, taut, with cheek to cheek,
And tease your mouth with kisses till you speak

Love words, mad words, dream words, sweet senseless words,
Melodious like notes of mating birds;

Cy and Lori at the 2007 Iowa State Fair

Here we are, Cy the Cyclone- the Iowa State University mascot- and me. I enjoy the days that Cy strolls around the ISU campus waving the thumbs up to everyone. It's a signal that all is well in the universe when a large red cyclone bird is high-fiving humans on the planet earth.

Fully in Touch

I needed the Daily Dharma for today! I am posting it so that I can read it when I need a reminder; Feeling pain is part of life and learning.


Tricycle's Daily Dharma: August 5, 2007

Fully In Touch

The person that desires to have only pleasure and refuses pain expends an enormous amount of energy resisting life--and at the same time misses out enormously. He or she is on a self-defeating mission in any case, for just as we evade certain forms of suffering we inevitably fall victim to others. Underlying our glitzy modern consumer culture there is a deep spiritual under-nourishment and malaise that manifests all kinds of symptoms: nervous disorders, loneliness, alienation, purposelessness . . . So blanking out, running away, burying our heads in the sand or videotape will take us nowhere in the long run. If we really want to solve our problems--and the world's problems, for they stem from the same roots--we must open up and accept the reality of suffering with full awareness, as it strikes us, physically, emotionally, mentally, spiritually, in the here-now. Then, strange as it may seem, we reap vast rewards. For suffering has its positive side. From it we derive the experience of depth: of the fullness of our humanity. This puts us fully in touch with other people and the rest of the Universe.

--John Snelling

China 0n-line: Poems and Perspectives

I was exploring the “Embassy of the People's Republic of China in the United States of America” web site while I questioned the credibility of the site with my keyboard clicks. I could not find the address for the Chinese Embassy in D.C. or the consulate in Chicago on the site. Perhaps I can market my editing skills in Shanghai; important things get lost in translation on many of the web sites I have encountered where Chinese is translated into English.

Judge the credibility of the “Embassy of the People's Republic of China in the United States of America” web site for yourself. The excerpt from the news release about human rights in the United States is a matter of how you choose to process and culturally understand the world.

http://www.china-embassy.org/eng/

China issues human rights record of the United States (03/08/07)

China issued on March 8 the Human Rights Record of the United States in 2006 in response to the Country Reports on Human Rights Practices for 2006 issued by the U.S. Department of State on Tuesday.

The document says the United States has a flagrant record of violating the Geneva Convention in systematically abusing prisoners during the Iraqi War and the War in Afghanistan.

A report released by the U.S. Census Bureau on Aug. 29, 2006 says there were 37 million people living in poverty in 2005, accounting for 12.6 percent of total U.S. population. The report also says there were 7.7 million families in poverty and one out of eight Americans was living in poverty in 2005. "The ethnic minorities are at the bottom of American society," the Chinese report says.

http://www.china-embassy.org/eng/zt/zgrq/t302225.htm

I read about volunteering for the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing and found a link to a site called "Chinese Poems."

After the Rain - Yue Fu

After rain, the forest's sleek,
Between the pines, the moon startles my heart.
I smile and think of home,
A foreign guest in a foreign land.

http://www.chinese-poems.com/yfa1.html

That will be me in September.

Guard Your Banana

I have been thinking about bananas and traveling lately- somewhat due to this passage from "The Inheritance of Loss."

"No fruit dies so vile and offensive a death as the banana, but it had been packed [for the trip] just in case."

I have had banana-horror-black-spots and mush traveling incidents myself. But look! Justin found this lovely gift for his friend Rachael, and it might solve the problem of banana death on the road.

THE BANANA GUARD, available in assorted colors:

http://www.bananaguard.com/

What snack do you pack when you travel?

A Tea Bar Visit Plan: My New City September '07

I was reading about tea houses in Shanghai on an expat web site that a friend sent me. I am planning a visit to this tea bar, and I would really love to meet the person who wrote the following review.

Shing Shung Tea Bar
Address: 195 North Huang Pi Road
Phone: 86 21 6358 2682

Information: Although outside the Old City walls, this cozy tea house-café, in the shadow of the wave-like Shanghai Grand Theatre near the People’s Square, is worth the cross-town trek just for its chilled black apple tea and coconut toast. When lunch hour is over and the well-heeled corporate types have departed, the tea house takes on a more turn-of-the-century European feeling as huddles of Othello players and pensive smokers reclaim the chairs around the dark, wood-paneled room and the try to make senses of the Edith Piaf tunes floating in from the kitchen.

Investigate tea houses and other surprises in Shanghai for yourself:

http://shanghai.asiaxpat.com/directory.asp?cat=250&id=3890
http://shanghai.asiaxpat.com/atoz.asp

Books I Want To Peruse This Summer

Can't believe I am involved in a Facebook on-line community food fight. Watch out, I may throw a cake at you when I get my lunch money. How old am I? Paul, you started it!

It is great to have so much free time this summer. I love it!

After reading book reviews this morning, I think I should go back for my Ph.D. in literature, but I need some time off first.

Appreciate this thought from Khaled Hosseini, author of the “The Kite Runner” and “A Thousand Splendid Suns,” with me.

“As a writer, the things that always move me are the intimate human stories, the links between the characters, their dreams, their disappointments, their crushing defeats and their atonements.”

Books I want to peruse:

Ian McEwan - On Chesil Beach

***** Ryszard Kapuscinski, Knopf - Travels with Herodotus

National Geographic - The 100 Best Vacations to Enrich Your Life

Quirk, edited by: Erik Torkells - The Smart Traveler’s Passport: 399 Tips from Seasoned Travelers

Gone Fishing

So Long.
Farewell.
Auf Wiedersehen.
Goodnight!

I'm taking a sabbatical from blogging.

Can't say when I will return. Enjoy your time and appreciate each minute.

More Continents and More Dreams

I practice Buddhism, so it is very possible that in possible past lives, I may have lived happily on the continent of Asia or Africa, which exempts me from the pressures of conforming to the American Dream (AD) today.


My sister and I appear in the photo above at a time when we were still blissfully unaware that the AD existed in the collective consciousness of our elders. What a light hearted time.

Trolls and Me

Poi Balls Anyone?

Ricardo the Deer in the Woods: I miss him!!!

Everyone is Related and Connected

Reminder to self: Don't forsake the inside for the outside please!

We are also, each and every one of us, whole and perfect as is, interrelated, essentially non-separated, and equal.

This, too, must be realized.

If we forsake the inside for the outside, it is not just Buddhism that is diminished but the horizons for true social transformation as well.

-Helen Tworkov, Tricycle: The Buddhist Review, Vol. IV, #1 From Everyday Mind, a Tricycle book edited by Jean Smith

Free Will and Fate: Which horse should you trust?

The Wisdom to Know the Difference

Elizabeth Gilbert, in her book “Eat, Pray, Love,” describes the intersection of free will and fate in our lives like the job of a circus performer who is riding two horses at the same time.

The secret to controlling both horses, she writes, is to have the wisdom to know when to give free will the lead and the common sense to realize when you don’t have a choice; fate will create your path.

Interesting...

As a Buddhist, I would add that it is important to take responsibility for the actions that we take when free will decides to gallop madly or go lollygagging down the path.

Good Fortune is My Middle Name

May it walk with me like the soles of my feet- everywhere and beyond.

May Good Fortune be yours as well!

Merrie Monarch Festival

The Merrie Monarch Festival in Hilo, Hawaii, April 2007

Ancient Hula Night

Put on my Buddha boots and continue on my journey…

These are Brent's boots from the free box, so they must have positive traveling energy that will float with me on my path. I donated the boots to the Landscaping Department at Kalani when I left so other members of our crew may be wearing them now. These boots get around. We like to share at Kalani. That is the spirit of community.

As for myself, let's see where I end up in my Buddha boots walking tour of the world.

Join me on the adventure?

Friends

Shooting Kalani Love

The Surf Is Rising In Maui!

Maui: The Hana Highway and the Drift Wood of Nine Days in the Sun

I have just returned to the big island from a nine day sunrise-filled vacation on the island of Maui. Do I have visuals to dazzle your consciousness? Yes. Tales to tan your skin? Double positive.

Tune in for the rest of the story: Coming soon to a blog spot near you.