It’s clear that a lot of my addictive nature is the avoidance of feelings. I find I really don’t understand feelings well at all. In fact, I often can’t identify my feelings with precision, at least not without serious reflection.
Turns out, I’m not alone in this. I’ve been using this list of [...]
Summer has never been my favorite season. I love spring and fall, with their sense of change and movement in the air. Migration season has started—a new wave of birds appears, passing through as they leave their northern breeding grounds, and I’m back on Hawk Hill every-other Saturday, counting raptors. The sky [...]
Working with the goats has settled into a routine. Milking in the morning usually takes less than two hours. Lately, I’ve been able to learn another skill: trimming hooves.
The hooves of goats grow just like our own toenails. In the wild, the goats would be scampering around rocks, the abrasive surfaces wearing [...]
30"x22", watercolor and, of course, red thread.
Loosely based on the recent lunar eclipse and continuing in the red thread theme. The sewing is in the same pattern as on the rakusu.
I was happy to get a kayak back in the water on Monday, checking out Estero Americano for the first time, after over a year of no paddling at all. It took a silly amount of will for me to get over my fear and reluctance to make the effort, even knowing it would [...]
Goats
Bar Patrons
When trying to move a goat, use inertia…go any direction with the goat, then plant your feet and pivot to your desired direction.
When trying to move a drunk, use inertia…go any direction with the drunk, then plant your feet and pivot to your desired direction.
Pushing can work better than pulling. The goat seems to [...]
My mornings are usually too hectic to write much anymore. For a while, I was trying to get up at 4am to have time to write; now I try for 4:30, and and then there’s the snooze alarm for a few times while I try in vain to remember dreams and contemplate how cold [...]
My newest zen hero: Ikkyu, originator of the concept of “the red thread of zen”. Philip Toshio Sudo described Ikkyu’s philosophy and influence like this:
To Ikkyu, cutting off relations between men and women so as to attain enlightenment made no sense. In his philosophy of “red thread zen,” sex deepened the experience of [...]
My ranch job is to be the morning goat milker, so every morning at 6am, I head down to the barn and greet the ladies. If it’s been a rainy night, they’re usually hanging out in the barn.
Then I head into the middle room of the barn, where the milk is stored. My [...]
I’ve been collecting materials for a memorial of sorts, and realized that today might be a good day to put it together.
Moving into a yurt did nothing to dispel my interest in traditional Mongolian culture, which started when I first heard of the Mongolian eagle hunters. One of the things that fascinates me the [...]