WW: Autumn barnyard

(Results of two or three hours' work.)

The Lemon Koan

"When life gives you lemons, you are mistaken."

Ummon (probably)

(See the Blue Cliff Record, Case 6, and the provocative commentary that follows it. Courtesy of William Nyogen Yeo and Hazy Moon Zen Center/Koun-Ji Temple, Los Angeles.)



Photo courtesy of Scott Bauer, the Agricultural Research Service of the US Department of Agriculture, and Wikimedia Commons.

WW: Canadian bodhisattva

(Jizo Bodhisattva, patron of children and teachers, is traditionally venerated a variety of ways. Most involve specific gifts left at his statue's feet, or dressing it in certain garments, usually red. Of these, the most common is a knitted tuque.

Thus, when I saw one bareheaded on a friend's deck, I knew what practice demanded.

I classed it up a little while I was up.)

Hungry Ghost

(These are the lyrics to one of my Buddhist country and western songs, offered here in honour of Hallowe'en.)

If you come 'round late
By my back stairs
When the moon is full
And there's no-one there
You might hear a sound, like footsteps on the floor
But when you turn around
It won't be there no more

No, it ain't everyone
That can see him there
Mostly kids and dogs
And folks in despair
But I give him board, and that makes me the host
To a gentle friend
And a hungry ghost

Refrain:

'Cos he's a man of hope
And a man of peace
He's a man of faith
And not the least
He's a man of heart, and that's what matters most
'Cos he's a man apart
So he's a hungry ghost

Folks down in town
Say it's all a hoax
Just a trick of light
In the prairie oaks
Say it's just the wind, blowed down from off the ridge
And if you'll buy that
I got a bridge

[Bridge]

So if you got a roof
Against the storm
If your belly's full
And your heart is warm
Then say a word of grace, and keep your loved ones close
And spare a thought
For the hungry ghosts

Refrain to end



(Copyright RK Henderson. Detail of the hungry ghosts that walk amongst us from the 12th century scroll 餓鬼草紙、平安時代 ; photo courtesy of the Kyoto National Museum and Wikimedia Commons.)

WW: Venus flytrap

(In honour of Hallowe'en, here's a shot of my latest pet. I adopted this flytrap [Dionaea muscipula] two years ago, when it was in dire straits. In its first summer with me, it reached a high of five healthy traps before lapsing back into the mandated winter coma. Today, on the cusp of the next hibernation period, it has twelve.

Caring for a Venus flytrap is great fun, and not terribly difficult if you uphold a few basic rules. I'm hoping this one comes through its incipient cryostasis in good form and ready to build even greater health on the other side, in the spring and summer sun.)

Koan: Attaining Enlightenment

The hermit Hyung asked, "How do you find something that isn't lost?"

Wu Ya's commentary: "Go to the last place you didn't see it."



(Photo of the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array [ALMA] courtesy of Babak A. Tafreshi and Wikimedia Commons.)

WW: Mountain beaver den

(When I was a kid, the forest floor in my neck of the woods was full of big ragged holes like this one. When I asked the grups what made them, they said "mountain beaver".

I never saw the actual animal, and couldn't find mountain beaver in any book. My teachers – few of whom were of Old Settler stock – were no better help.

I concluded that "mountain beaver" was a cryptid, if not an outright jackalope, and wrote it off. But I still wondered what made those holes.

It would take the advent of Google to solve the mystery at last.

Aplodontia rufa – the mountain beaver – is an ancient proto-rodent, with multiple features missing from modern mammals. Last of its genus, the remaining Aplodontia have for the last 10,000 years been confined to the small stretch of the North Coast where I grew up. Hence the silence of the guidebooks, which never covered our stuff back in the day, and the ignorance of my teachers, who had been educated in the same imperialistic Eastern curriculum.

I've since laid eyes on a few of the little guys, which is ironic given that their habitat is vanishing fast and taking them with it. When I was surrounded by them, on ground long since scraped flat for housing estates, they never showed their faces.

I took the above shot last summer, on a cruise through another forest not far from my childhood home. It turned out to be rife with irregular holes scratched out under low vegetation, surrounded by heaps of glacial spoil. Just as I remember.

So I guess there are a few holdouts. Remains to be seen for how much longer. )