Observe, listen to your body. It always speaks the truth, sometimes loudly, sometimes softly. In every muscle, wrinkle, and cell, it shows, demonstrates, reminds, proves. The mind is a storyteller. The body is the story’s meaning revealed. The mind says, I need coffee, I need pills, I need eight hours of sleep, I need gravy, I need meat. The body replies with aches and pains. It gives you clouds. It […]
Yesterday evening after dark, we had the universe to ourselves. So it seemed, so it felt, out walking under the clouds and stars, knowing full well that the clouds and stars were under us as well, making us as round as this dear round globe. Above us, though, in the swath that was visible to our bare naked eyes, were majestic rivers — rivers of illuminated clouds in galactic strands; […]
Walking in the direction of low racing clouds lit by the city, I keep pace long enough to take flight — too weightless to be wrong, too dizzy to be right. February 5, 2021 . [ 1011 ]
Fennel seed tea with just a bit of blackberry honey: a timely cure for all the physical and mental ailments of which I remain unaware. On the path beyond Goose Lake, we came to a place where a tree was down, blocking our way. Just inside the network of slender bare branches, there were two brown rabbits. They kept their eyes on us as we made the long way around. […]
Tiny wren on a thorny bare rose. Enlightenment is not a pose. February 3, 2021. Afternoon. . [ 1009 ]
My life experience cannot be duplicated. It is too complex, too richly detailed. It is personal, private. It is mine alone. What happens to us, happens to us individually. Triumphs, trials, and tragedies can be shared, but each is felt, interpreted, and remembered differently. Even the death of a sibling, parent, or family friend is not simply one death: the departed not only dies for himself, he dies separately and […]
Green beneath the dripping trees, white between — and the full moon, melting — everything. January 28, 2021 . [ 1006 ]
The icy granite leaves * no doubt * you wonder * about your consciousness * and how it came to be * this eternal * fragile * thing * with wings * * January 27, 2021 . [ 1005 ]
Back to Goose Lake, this time beneath a rapidly developing snow sky, with an early morning view of the Cascades: Mt. Hood and Mt. Jefferson are sharply defined and the entire range is aglow. Thirty-four degrees. Hawks, flickers, towhees, and talkative wrens; an eruption of ducks; near the old cottonwood, a picnic table that has absorbed so much moisture it looks like it will soon be growing again. Goose Lake […]
Lower South Falls is running so wide, and the path on the ledge in the rock behind it is so near, that one must pass through the falls to continue on the trail beyond — not directly through, for one could hardly survive its weight and force; but through its grand turbulence and ethereal spray. Stop here; look deeply into its heart not ten feet away; it makes you dizzy […]
William Michaelian 