Suchness

This may be the most Zen thing I've ever seen in a Japanese garden. (And I've seen a lot; been fanboy of that Zen-soaked tradition since I was 9.)

The feature itself, carefully nestled in native and introduced ornamentals, is a fine example of skilfully-used stone. No surprise, given that we're in Seattle's Kubota Garden; founder Fujitaro Kubota was noted for his expertise with stone.

What's less widely known is that he apparently also had a koanic sense of humour. Because the inscription on this stone (記念碑) reads "monument".

The Kubota Garden Facebook page says this is also a kinen-hi – a disaster memorial – but neither it, nor the garden's own website, nor any other I've found, specifies which disaster it memorialises.

But material matters aside, the Kubota Stone remains a ringing, uh… monument… to suchness.

(Photo courtesy of Joe Mabel and Wikimedia Commons.)

WW: Good Housekeeping Seal

(This little figure, which my mom brought home from one of her trips up the North Coast, had a place in her living room for forty years. Early on I dubbed it the Good Housekeeping Seal, by which name it's generally been known since.)

Appearing also on My Corner of the World.

WW: Dried kelp

(Nereocystis sp. Great toasted as a salty crunchy snack, or broken into soups, sauces and the like as a vegetable.)

Appearing also on My Corner of the World.

Karmic Kryptonite

The most dangerous thing a sentient being can do is to act on pretext. "Since you did that, I can do this."

That's policy, not principle.

Amœbic eye-for-an-eye morality is karmic kryptonite.



(Photo of Amœba sphaeromeleolus [fine life-form as far as I'm concerned, but not noted for circumspection] courtesy of Dalinda Bouraoui, the Muséum d'histoire naturelle de Genève, and Wikimedia Commons.)

WW: Forest memorial

(According to information painted on its crossbar, this marker memorialises a young person. It's nailed high on a Douglas fir on the shore of a pond that's accessible from a nearby trail. It's a deeply touching gesture, as much for the simple dignity of the testament as the peaceful seclusion of its location.)

The Lincoln Koan

How many legs does a dog have if you call his tail a leg?

Four.

Saying that a tail is a leg doesn't make it a leg.


Abraham Lincoln


(Detail from the Lincoln Memorial courtesy of Steve Evans and Wikimedia Commons.)

WW: Black- and raspberry wine

(Here's a bucket of wine I put up on the fridge this week, made of equal parts blackberries and raspberries frozen in summer. It'll be ready to bottle in several months, and fit to drink a year thereafter.

The kvass in the plastic soda bottle was fermented from the second press. Its crisp dryness and beautiful jewel-like colour bode well for the wine to come.)



Appearing also on My Corner of the World.