Theme
1:01am
July 17, 2015
Magical Ten Minutes In Redwood Forest Along Highway 128
My wife and I had an unbelievable 35 hours in mendocino. Our first stop…just a random pullout in the redwoods filled with majestic trees, ferns, mushrooms and creatures! It only got better from there…
(Mendocino, California - 11/2014)
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9:55pm
June 16, 2015
the reason autism doesnt need a “cure”
imagine an orange. now imagine everyone pointing at the orange and going “OMG!!!! THIS APPLE IS SICK!!!!! HOW DO WE FIX THIS BROKEN APPLE!!!!!!” the orange is not sick or broken. its just completely different than an apple. the problem is that everyone is trying to get the orange to be like every other apple. because that isnt going to happen. you dont need to fix the orange its perfectly find as an orange. you need to create a world thats fair to both apples and oranges
But also, the way people will then go “But gastrointestinal issues! But epilepsy! But major communication disabilities! But meltdowns!”
Yes…apple trees are susceptible to certain ailments, and citrus trees are susceptible to certain other ailments, in addition to being more vulnerable to frost and other environmental factors.
That makes the solution to develop effective treatments for the issues that citrus trees are more vulnerable to than apple trees, not to eradicate citrus trees.
I made this tree analogy ages ago (including Oak Rot, I believe):
(I have more affinity with redwoods than oaks, but that’s not why I wrote this, so yeah. And I do have a fair amount of affinity with oaks, as they grew very near where I grew up, lots of them. Just more so with redwoods because that’s where I was when I was born, and that runs very deep.)
2:22am
June 6, 2015
My cat on branches decal is finally up. A collaboration between me and a very tall staff person. The birds were added last. It’s not the same as the picture on the container due to putting branches in slightly different locations but I think it turned out great. You can’t even barely see the plastic still on one of the birds (we took it off after I found it).
3:32pm
February 27, 2015
The aerial photographs of Kacper Kowalski.
If you haven’t seen much of Poland yet, then Kacper Kowalski’s aerial photos will make the perfect introduction. Born in 1977, the artist originally holds a degree in architecture, but has turned to piloting and photography instead. While flying above northern Poland, he found two incredibly beautiful lakes and decided to capture them as they change throughout the seasons. One of the lakes is in Kashubia and another one in Pomerania. Being in control of both the plane and the camera gives Gdynia-based artist a unique ability to control and handle each shot as he pleases, so each photo is thought-through and completed.
#Poland #Europe #biodiversity #photography
OMG that’s some of the most amazing photography I’ve ever seen.
6:41am
December 27, 2014
Crater Lake, Oregon. I know it looks like I’m sitting in front of a giant postcard, but this is a real place, and a beautiful one. Unfortunately, I rarely got to experience the beauty of such places firsthand. Travel filled up my brain so heavily with new visual experiences that it was all I could do not to scream or collapse by the end of the day. It’s only when places get pushed back into my long-term memory, and all the sensory pieces reassembled bit by bit in some kind of warehouse in my head that they don’t let me see directly, that I can actually enjoy a totally new place without feeling like my head will explode. Often my memories of a place are much better than my direct experience of a place at the time, and this is why.
Unfortunately, there are times when my brain gets so full and so overloaded that nothing can put the pieces back together again, ever. And then i’m just left with the original sensory experience s my only memory of the place.
11:33pm
October 25, 2014
Haiku #5: Redwoods drink water
ocean mist blows through
redwoods drink through their needles
not only their roots
[This post is also on my main poetry blog, which has a comments section.]
9:09pm
September 24, 2014
Visiting Your Grave
I may never see your grave in person
But I will be there every day
That’s a promise I can keep
Every night before I sleep
As I travel to the place where you’ll lay
I will be the rain that falls on your grave
I will be the wind in the trees in the graveyard
I will be the soil that grows the plants
I will be the plants that grow from you
I will be the sky that shelters the earth
I will be the earth lying under the sky
I will be the sun shining down on the trees
I will be the trees growing over the graves
I will be the needles and leaves that fall from the trees
And carpet the ground where you lay
So don’t fear that I will never visit
I will be with you every day
I’ll be the rain and the wind
And the sun and the stars
And the earth made into clay
I will see you from above
I will see you from below
I will see you from without
I will see you from within
And if you want my flowers
Just look for the weeds
Growing at the base of your grave
The graveyard in the woods.
The graveyard in the woods.
The graveyard in the woods.
[Also posted at my main poetry blog. The post on the other blog has pictures of the graveyard in question, where my dad has already picked out his grave site and his plain pine coffin. This is not the poem I’ve been working on writing, it just came out rather quickly on its own, almost too fast to write down.]
12:18pm
September 14, 2014
“High on the ridge above the farm
(Gone, gonna rise again)
I think of my people who have gone on
(Gone, gonna rise again)
Like a tree that grows in the mountain ground
Storms of life have cut ‘em down
But the new wood springs from the roots in the ground
Gone, gonna rise again”
— Kathy Mattea, “Gone, Gonna Rise Again”
Those roots mean everything to me. And this kind of thing… this is why the redwoods have taught me so much about life, and death, and how death comes from life and life comes from death. With my dad dying, this song is never far from my mind. Of course this whole album is about death and loss, and it’s been a great comfort lately. But this song gets to the core of it in many ways. It talks about the way we leave things for future generations, it talks about the way after people die, there’s still new life. And it talks about it all in terms I can understand.
(via youneedacat)
8:39pm
September 9, 2014
Photosynthesis
Sometimes I have climbed a tree
All the way to the top
And pressed my body into the trunk
Until I didn’t know where I ended
And the tree began
I’ve never liked the feel of sun on my skin
But on top of the tree it’s different
Because on the tree my skin gives way to leaves
And the sun means food to them
It’s a popular thing to say these days
That if a person is different enough from you
You’ll never understand them from the inside
But photosynthesis has taught me that’s wrong
Because I feel what it’s like
To get food from the sun
And to follow that sunlight the whole day long
My skin becomes bark
My bones become wood
My hair becomes leaves
My feet become roots
And rather than hating the sun on my skin
It sings me a food song
A life song
A love song
A light song
And if I can resonate with a tree
To photosynthesize as if I have leaves
Then surely I can resonate with
A member of my species
Who’s different from me
Even if they tell me
It can’t be done
10:29pm
August 31, 2014
When I say love
When I say love
I mean the way the granite feels
When caressed by the sun
On a hot summer day
When I say love
I mean the way redwoods feel
When they drink in mist
Through their leaves
When I say love
I mean how the redwoods
Iterate an entire forest
In one tree
When I say love
I mean the way the redwood sorrel
Always finds its way up
To carpet the forest floor
When I say love
I mean the way roots find water
And help the plant grow straight
While the leaves search for light
When I say love
I mean how the leaves feel
When they turn sunlight
Into food
When I say love
I mean the way one old redwood
In a forest of newer growth
Holds up the entire ecosystem
When I say love
I mean lichen and moss
And salamanders
Who never leave the treetops
When I say love
I mean soil on the ground and in the trees
That allows death, decay, and rebirth
And endlessly creates life
When I say love
My body may be in bed
But I have slipped off to the forest
Through an impossibly deep blue twilight sky
To curl up at the foot of the Mother Tree
And bask in Her amethyst glow
And maybe, maybe
Be brought into the soil
To decay, to grow, to live
To soak up some of Her love
10:26pm
August 17, 2014
Grumpy stick
I am a grumpy gnarly stick in the wood
Stuck in the mud of the muck of the wood
And I’m grumpy and gnarly
And no one remembers
Even what tree I came from
There’s lichen on part of me
Moss on the other
Bark on some parts
And bare on the others
There’s holes left by bugs
Some places are craggy
And others are saggy
I’m a dead stick
A gnarly stick
A grumpy stick
A stick in the mud
And a dead gnarly grumpy stick in the mud
Is not always a bad thing to be
9:26am
August 15, 2014
Love pictures like this.