True nature;
It is on this mountain.
Because of the heavy mist, the exact location is unknown.
– An Ancestor's commentary on the Mumonkan.
(Photo of a North Coast mountain that looks remarkably similar to the one were I sat ango, courtesy of John Fowler and Wikimedia Commons.)
(The anenome [suspect Urticina columbiana] is about the size of a teacup; the crab is Hemigrapsus oregonensis, the green shore crab.
Beach crabs are seldom swallowed by anemones; on the contrary, when below the waterline, these crabs often rest in the middle of an open anemone's tentacles for long periods. I suspect this bravado is down to the fact that they're hard as porcelain and quite intractable when challenged, which is why they have very few predators. So I have no idea what the story is here. This one was still perfectly healthy despite being half-gobbed, yet not trying in the least to escape. Perhaps he burrowed into the cnidarian deliberately, though to what end I've no better idea.)
Appearing also on My Corner of the World.
"The truth knocks on the door and you say, 'Go away, I’m looking for the truth,' and so it goes away."
Robert Pirsig
(Photo courtesy of Felix Luo and Unsplash.com.)
(My thirty-year-old OHR high-frequency CW [Morse code] transceiver, set up at the home of friends. My friends are biologists, and their fossil-sorting table was convenient on several levels.)
Appearing also on My Corner of the World.
I've been feeling a bit nostalgic about the old meditation shed I had down at the beach, and it struck me that I've never actually posted on it, though others' huts have appeared here several times. (I did upload a named exterior shot ten years ago on Wordless Wednesday, but the others that have appeared from time to time were illustrating other topics, and so not identified.)
So in the interest of completism, here it is.
This tiny shack, the very picture of a true purist's definition of "hut", started life as my grandmother's potting shed. My grandfather carved it out 
of the bluff below their house, where I lived for ten years during the formative period of my Zen practice. When I arrived, the house and grounds were both in dire condition; eventually I hacked my way down to this cinderblock shanty, re-opening a steep, eroded goat trail through impenetrable brush. The door, which had been kicked in by a winter storm, lay on the floor inside; only the twisted wreckage of the lower hinge was still nominally attached.
In the intervening years blackberry and honeysuckle had invaded and filled the interior, along with bracken, lady fern, and infant trees, and the roof and wooden parts had rotted in places. Its concrete floor was completely saturated, covered with standing water and mud from infiltrated silt.
I really didn't need a place to sit, as the house – high on a bluff above the grey Pacific, with few neighbours – 
was already the best hermit hut in history. But rehabilitating one of my grandmother's work stations was an attractive premise, and the place would provide ground-level, fundamentally outdoor meditation, which I always prefer when available.
So I set-to, and after a lot of concentrated effort and scrounging of materials, ended up with this serviceable little squat. I even once sat an all-night sesshin there, hoping to glimpse the bear that left scat in front of it. (I didn't, but I did learn, not for the last time, that spring nights on the North Pacific are bitterly winter-cold.)
So here it is, my own hermit hut. Or to be perfectly accurate, my monastic playhouse. It might not have been strictly necessary, but I learned a lot of Zen there.
(Belgians waiting to compete in the driving event at the Northwest Washington Fair. There are other breeds here as well, but for reasons I don't understand, Belgians seem to be the regional standard.)
Appearing also on My Corner of the World.
7. I’d really rather you didn’t go around telling people I talk to you. You’re not that interesting. Get over yourself. And I told you to love your fellow man, can’t you take a hint?
From The 8 I’d Really Rather You Didn’ts of the Flying Spaghetti Monster.
(Photo of devout Pastafarian courtesy of Wikimedia Commons and a generous photographer.)
I've been feeling a bit nostalgic about the old meditation shed I had down at the beach, and it struck me that I've never actually posted on it, though others' huts have appeared here several times. (I did upload a named exterior shot ten years ago on Wordless Wednesday, but the others that have appeared from time to time were illustrating other topics, and so not identified.)
of the bluff below their house, where I lived for ten years during the formative period of my Zen practice. When I arrived, the house and grounds were both in dire condition; eventually I hacked my way down to this cinderblock shanty, re-opening a steep, eroded goat trail through impenetrable brush. The door, which had been kicked in by a winter storm, lay on the floor inside; only the twisted wreckage of the lower hinge was still nominally attached.
was already the best hermit hut in history. But rehabilitating one of my grandmother's work stations was an attractive premise, and the place would provide ground-level, fundamentally outdoor meditation, which I always prefer when available.
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