Geneva, the Fox river Valley is overcast, rain is expected for this afternoon. That is well, as growing things are eager for a drink before the sleep of frost comes. All things in due time is the rule-of-thumb. Reading the Zhuangzi, the admonition is to forget oneself, to be oblivious to the human, that…
The air is cool, cleansed by a day of rain. I do not remember the last time of a full day of rain. Rain comes infrequently, as if nature is diffident, inattentive to the thirst of plants and creatures living on a thin crust of the earth. Another consequence of climate warming, perhaps? Heat…
Monday brings the prospect of rain. Weeks without precipitation and the grass is dormant, the shrubs appear thirsty and dull at the end of a growing season. Some trees are shedding leaves, without any retrograde movement of temperature thus far. Does anyone pray for rain? I know that my grandfather did. Granddad owned a…
I felt ambivalence. Not being a connoisseur of antique automobiles why would I desire the press of congestion at the Geneva Concours d’Elegance? Contemplating vintage vehicles on the flat screen in the course of a television historical drama is enough for me. On the other hand, the event was free… As you would guess…
Sunday, late summertime is fine here. Sunshine, the beds of flowers display a riot of life and colors. But not so everywhere. In the aftermath of the Maui wildfires the death toll stands at 93 so far. Did anyone think a tropical paradise could be vulnerable to wildfires? Neighborhoods wiped out, now become skeletal…
Today will be another sweltering day. Heat and stifling humidity. One adapts to conditions as one is able, constraints presented by the thermal energy-surge of atmosphere, of ocean currents, a result of millennia of sequestered carbon release since the advent of the industrial age. The “waste” must go somewhere… Wouldn’t you agree? You cannot…
Thursday dawns with a hazy sky, hundreds of wildfires burn in the Canadian north. Since we all share a single planet New York City, the eastern seaboard of the United States is choked with unhealthy levels of smoke. For New York’s citizens it is unhealthy to be outside. Are we about to change our…
Returned from a wedding in Michigan. We received the invitation from a couple on my wife’s side of our family. No two weddings are alike. Two family groups are brought together in celebration of a beginning of life-together for two adults who have been recipients of parent’s devotion. The endeavor of parents to enable…
Do we pray anymore? Piety is obsolete in a secular society. Not entirely of course. Always there are remote places that have yet to hear the news. News takes time. “God is dead,” Nietzsche proclaimed as in the “Gay Science” published 1882. A way of life predicated upon reliance upon the technology of the…
Another satisfying morning at Starbucks. Often do I fail to notice how good life can be, just how lucky (another way of putting it) to be seated here with a cup of coffee in hand, conversing with a friend? Friendship is inestimable, a practice of presence, the exchange of words which reciprocally enlighten… The…
