Getting On With It

"Well, never mind.
We are ugly, but we have the music."

Leonard Cohen

(Tōsendō Rifū's Wakashu and Itinerant Monk Playing the Shakuhachi courtesy of the Honolulu Museum of Art and Wikimedia Commons.)

WW: Mystery shelter

(This temporary structure lies in the middle of a forest, where it has apparently been temporary for decades. It's the sort of building often erected for a greenhouse or potting shed, or makeshift housing for someone on a longterm outdoor job. None of which applies here, in a mature bigleaf forest with no vehicle access [or even footpath, at least not anymore] to the site.

The tarp stretched over its impromptu wooden frame has mostly rotted away from all but the near wall, and a thick lawn of forest duff, grass, moss, and ferns, a good 8 inches deep, has accrued heavily on what remains of the roof.

Kids' playhouse? Teenager's summer retreat? No idea. But heck, I'd live there.)

The Nutshell Koan

This koan-calibre meme has been making the rounds on the Fediverse recently. The insight here is unmistakable, and like all incisive analysis, reveals new facets and angles as it's turned in the light.

It's also universally applicable, so if these terms are unacceptable, you'll have to find another planet to do business with.

WW: Autumn resistance

(Courtesy of Ginkgo biloba.)

Geese

After dinner I set the dishes to soak and stole a walk along the Snake, nostrils filled with an evening bouquet of willow and grass, and a late June river now warmer than the wind.

Mid-channel, where a less sensitive fisher might have cut doughnuts and shattered the day's-end respite, a lone jet sled planed, sedate and respectful.

As it passed, a black periscope suddenly rose out of the weedy bank, then two more: the half-honking sentries of a squadron of Canada geese. Odd, there in canyon country, where such large, horde-inclined birds might be supposed few and temporary. But these were clearly local, bedded down in the casual trust of home. I later learned this resident flock was new, having landed one spring day, literally out of blue, and set up a permanent summer headquarters.

Military types, geese. Not the cocky commandos of war movies, but the steady, steely soldiers of real life, more resolute than brave, given to objectives and logistics and calculated risk. No other culture could sustain a nation like theirs: bulky, soft-sided airframes blacking the sky twice a year as they cross and recross a predatory planet. Evidently, Chief Timothy State Park was one place in the Snake River Canyon that met their criteria: food, water, and cover, with a wide approach that favoured landing and take-off.

And, critically, an acceptably low incidence of shotguns.

(Adapted from Rough Around the Edges: A Journey Through Washington's Borderlands, copyright RK Henderson. Canada goose courtesy of Albert Stoynov and Unsplash.com. Snake River at evening courtesy of David Dugan and Wikimedia Commons.)

WW: Indian summer dahlias

(D. coccinea.)

Disclaimer

WARNING: this book contains descriptions of defecation, the 1970s, and Zen. Sensitive readers may wish to look elsewhere.

I've been vetting disclaimers for the title page of 100 Days on the Mountain, the book I've written about my forest ango. The above draught covers the bases, but I worry some might still sue me for marketing a supposedly Buddhist memoir that's "too country, too prosaic, and too real."

OK… but that's also a succinct summary of my readers.

(Photo of me on the last day, sitting zazen in my meditation shelter, taken by the friend who drove out and picked me up. Note water cup on its designated branch.)