WW: Okanogan cactus

(Opuntia fragilis or x columbiana, depending where you sit in that debate.

It's important to know where you sit when Opuntia's about.)

Appearing also on My Corner of the World.

Hermit Rule 26

Liberate yourself from everything that doesn't concern you.
Don't depend on people or on situations.
Look for your refuge and your help only in God.

– A Franciscan hermit in my Bluesky sangha.


(Photo of a lotus on the grounds of the Franciscan Monastery (sic) of the Holy Land in America courtesy of Clare Tallamy and Unsplash.com)

WW: Disturbing kleenex box

(This household object sends my mind on a variety of creeped-out tangents. Seems it keys neurons connected to a shelf of shadowy childhood nightmares. Maybe it's just me.)

Appearing also on My Corner of the World.

Hero Practice

They warn you not to meet your heroes,
to leave them unknown quantities,
to avoid disappointment.

But have you considered this:

Meet your heroes.

See them.

Accept their humanity,
the very unremarkable nature of them.

Stare reality in the eye,
that heroes live in this world with us.

They are from here,
made of the same material,
worn by the same forces.

Raised here, hazed here, as convoluted and unsavable as the rest of us.

Penetrate the nature of heroism;
have you run off half-cocked without doing this?

Did your heroes disappoint you?

Or was it you?


(Photo courtesy of Esteban López and Unsplash.com.)

WW:Winter evening on the bay

Appearing also on My Corner of the World.

Street Level Zen: Effect

"It's not that the wind is blowing. It's what the wind is blowing."

My friend Brent.

[Who informs me now that he originally got this mot d'ordre from comic Ron White.]


(Photo of dust storm swallowing Phoenix, AZ courtesy of Wikipedia Commons and a generous photographer.)

WW: Winter waterdog

(Taricha granulosa. One of the many good things in life.)

Appearing also on My Corner of the World.