Humility Kyôsaku

"This isn't the final Buddhism; it's just ours."

Seth Zuiho Segal


(Photo courtesy of Carlos ZGZ and Pxhere.com.)

WW: My mom's hydrangeas

(My mom's favourite flower, seen here from her bedroom window. Since she died I haven't performed any maintenance on these, though a neighour did clean them up a little last fall. And yet they're still coming on strong.

Flowers were so important to my mom. I think I'll invest a bit more effort in these from now on.)


Appearing also on My Corner of the World.

Rock Groups 2022

July has ambushed us again, and you know what that means: another whack of rock groups.

As I've explained in the past, July is that month when readership plummets, Zen monasteries close for the summer, and I run about the house naked… figuratively, at least. Which is to say, I vary from the more serious business of this blog and indulge a silly whim or two.

Of which this one has become an annual tradition.

So if you're new to this ritual, click on the embedded link above for the particulars. For the rest of you, gird your loins for:


Rock Groups 2022

Debris

Manley Toggle and the Light Crew

Dipswitch

Quadruped

Reg-O-Matic (rapper named Reginald)

Mångata (ethereal electronica)

Petrovascular

Tom Collins and the Highballs

Shotgun Wedding

Peristaltik

Dead Right

Looseleaf

Solid State

The Plethora

Airship

Dish Rack

Moosemeat

Tazelwurm

FlashBang

Crossbow

Sparehead #1 (don't pronounce the #)

Turdücken

Bandsaw

Hi-Horse

The Whistleblowers (Irish folk-rock)

The Wheelers

Tomnahurich (Scottish folk-rock)

The No Code (accent on No)

Les Castors du Rhône

Bright Blue

Rockbound

Skred

Monkeynut

Tony Zamboni and the Ice Machine

Blatweasel

The Rescue Dogs

Homogenous Mass (rap group)

Stretch

Avvakum

Aqua Regia

Tan Ru and the Nomads

Onyx

Dirty Thieving Bastards

Sinlahekin

Cutter John and the Penguins

(Photo courtesy of Markus Spiske and Rawpixel.com.)

WW: Resilient mottled star

(Evasterias troschelli. Note that the tip of one ray has apparently been gnawed off by the starfish plague, but the organism's immune system has fought off the attack. This bodes well for the species.)

Appearing also on My Corner of the World.

Why We Sit

Zazen doesn't solve anything; it just makes things possible.


(Photo courtesy of Gerald Ford and Wikimedia Commons.)

WW: Kitty oryoki

Appearing also on My Corner of the World.

Starfish Report 2022

Maimed P. ochraceus with a replacement ray coming.

So here we are again, back at the usual beach, counting starfish. (On a -5 tide! The Woodstock of marine biology nerds.)

News on the viral front remains guardedly optimistic. In a nutshell, several species present that are susceptible to starfish wasting disease continue to indicate resilience to one extent or another, though the depredation of the virus is still evident.

The bad news is that there is still no Pycnopodia and no Pisaster brevispinus. Researchers suggest the first may now be extinct here, though I hold out hope for deep-water populations of both that may eventually repopulate the shallows.

Meanwhile, that other Pisaster – the iconic North Pacific ochraceus – continues to display real backbone. In addition to a few full-grown specimens that are looking very intact if a bit pale, I also found some badly maimed ones that nevertheless showed no signs of current infection, and were even regrowing eaten limbs. This acquired immunity – if that's what I'm seeing – bodes well for a return to former numbers.

Evasterias troschelli also maintains a pronounced presence, which is more good news, given that this was another species

Young Evasterias troschelli.

virtually wiped out on North Coast beaches the instant the virus appeared. Many juveniles dot the beach now – more, I believe, than last year – though so far no fully grown ones. That last point remains a bit troubling; these animals may still be falling to infection before reaching adulthood. But a few mid-sized ones, scattered among the bright, colourful youngsters, give hope that this species too will eventually surmount the plague entirely.

In any case, there was little evidence of active infections anywhere on the beach, which all by itself is huge.

For the rest, leather stars (Dermasterias imbricata) still mostly own the low intertidal zone. Formerly sparse in southern Puget Sound owing to heavy predation by Pycnopodia, the disappearance of that rapacious marauder, combined with Dermasterias' near-immunity to the wasting disease, has handed it a golden ticket. (Bad news for the anemones though, since this star goes positively Pyncopodia on their figurative backsides.)

Also of note were the continued presence of a few neon Henricia leviuscula, another genus that's largely, though not entirely, impervious to the virus.

So there you go. No miracles, but a heartening show of evolutionary vigour from those species that survived the first wave.

Two juvenile Dermasterias.