Crossing Nebraska

I hadn’t fasted in over a year. That’s probably reason enough to conclude that life has been just a little bit too hectic of late. Combine that with the difficulty I had choosing a day on which to fast once I’d made up my mind to do so, and the evidence became conclusive. A life too busy to accommodate a day on which to fast is a life in need of simplification. Once I’d made up my mind, though, things fell into place quite nicely. No, I couldn’t find my special fasting tea – it must have gotten discarded in the move – but I did find a ginger and licorice root variety in the cupboard that would suffice. No, I didn’t prepare ahead in order to have some nice green juice or carrot juice on hand, but I did find some grape and orange juice in the fridge that would suffice. And, anyway, isn’t that what fasting is all about: gaining greater understanding of that which is sufficient? It is for me at least. My last “solid” food was a bowl of soup at around 7:00 p.m. This smaller...

Nature values life in abundance. The very soil beneath our feet is evidence of this truth, a testament to the untold abundance of all that has lived and died since life’s first humble beginnings here on earth. In equal measure, nature values diversity of life. Anyone who has ever strived to maintain a weed-free lawn can testify to this truth, as can anyone who has ever pondered the existence of the infectious diseases that so often plague us. Abundance and diversity, these twin values ultimately work in concert with each other, despite appearing to engage in mortal combat from time to time. Like when an abundance of foxes decimates a population of hares, annihilating diversity in the process; or when the abundant crop that we’d hoped for doesn’t materialize on account of the insects, weeds, fungus, or disease that came to call "our" garden home. Notwithstanding the inevitable ebb and flow in the short term, abundance and diversity do eventually come to exist in harmony w...

A new year begins, and with it I embark on a new journey born of renewed intention – even as the mud and memories of years gone by remain. The holiday season brought with it all the joy and sorrow of the karma that is mine; and now I live with the renewed intention that urged me to sit rohatsu sesshin at Sanshinji at the beginning of the last month of last year. Some days into that sesshin it began to snow. I walked in it one day after lunch, just as it was ceasing its accumulation. Here are some photographs of that walk, accompanied by the poetry that has been percolating somewhere in the back of my mind ever since: Walking In The Snow Walking in the snow is a meditation That unfolds of its own accord. If one must speak in terms of beginnings, Then it begins with the closing of the door behind us. And it ends when…, well…, Who can say when it ends?   A closing door, A garden fencerow – A walk in the snow quickly leaves such things behind. ...

The weather is lousy outside, with sleet coating everything and a foot of snow on the way. That’s what I’ve been hearing on the local news, anyway—the foot of snow, that is. The sleet I can see with my very own eyes. I can hear it, too, peppering the windows when the wind picks up, first from one side of the house, then the other. Like a child home from school on a snow day, I stand at the window surveying the backyard where everything is covered with white or dripping with ice. Absent is the usual activity of squirrels tending to their stashes of nuts, rabbits hopping about tentatively, as if they’ve only so much energy to spare, and starlings flitting en masse from lawn to tree to who knows where. They all seem to have disappeared. The squirrels I know are up there in their leafy nests, huddled together and swaying with the wind. The rabbits are down in their unseen burrows, wonderfully insulated with grass and fur. The starlings are more of a mystery to me, though. Apparently...