oamalik

Today, I went hiking in the rain, searching for interesting birds to study. While looking through my binoculars at two red-tailed hawks flying in tandem, a middle-aged blonde lady and her dog came by. She was whistling sharply in distress, looking across the steep ravine, clearly looking for someone who was lost. "Sorry for disturbing your serenity," she said apologetically, to which I replied that it was fine, but who are you looking for? I was at a good vantage point, so I attempted to find her two missing black labs through my binoculars as she continued up the hill. She had called a rescue team to find her dogs, and I said I would keep an eye out. Forty-five minutes later, once at the very top of the ridge, at an elevation of at least 1100 feet, I found them. They were on the muddy trail, wet and timid, shy to my calls. I came up to them and let the smaller of the two lick my hand briefly. The larger dog was in charge and seemed to be on a mission, and I thought briefly of Homeward Bound.

I started walking back down the path, and only once I started saying "C'mon!" and walking quickly did they clumsily run after me, chasing little sparrows on the trail. I'm not usually good with dogs, so I felt joyous that these two hounds followed me down the hill, even if for a brief stretch. I encountered another lady walking her dog on the ridge; I asked if she knew where the first lady was--she didn't know, so I decided to go downhill to find her and tell her the good news. This dark-haired lady had a golden retriever, and due to some natural law of dogdom, the black dogs followed her instead. She said she would be heading down the hill with them shortly.

I bounded down the hill, nearly slipping on the mud that was freshly rained upon. I passed a professional jogger, who stared at my clumsy composure: beanie and journal in one hand, binoculars in another--hardly practical on those precarious hills. I didn't care. I was on a mission. I took a shortcut through some low shrubs, and felt like a hunter of old, like some ancient tribesman on the slopes of the Caspian Sea. My senses were acute: I stopped and listened for a whistle, trying to locate that sad lady. I called out every couple hundred feet of descent: "Ma'am??" No luck. Once at the bottom of the hill, which was about 500 ft above sea level, I could no longer hear her whistling. I waited a moment, and decided that perhaps the other lady coming down the hill had fortuitously met the rescue team, saving the day.

I walked slowly up the hill, now paying attention to my aching calves. I didn't find anyone else on the way up to the top of the ridge, and decided that the best of circumstances must have happened. I continued my bird watching for another hour and a half, and once the rain became too cold, and the light too dim to see anything in the trees, I headed back down the hill. About halfway down, however, I saw two dark shapes ahead of me--not cougars, I hope!--no, they're tame, they're dogs! I found those poor creatures again, slinking along the trail in the rain. A hiker passed me, and she had no idea what to do about the dogs, and continued on her way. I couldn't get the dogs to follow me this time. The little one stopped to look at me with its ears perked, but didn't move. The larger one kept walking, and soon the little one followed. I was at a loss. No one was around, and I was helpless. I just watched them amble up the slope, and disappear like specters into the grove of eucalyptus trees.

It is only by a sheer coincidence that the Sun appears as to be the same size as the Moon.

[Wikipedia]:

Modern English soul continues Old English sáwol, sáwel, first attested in the 8th century (in Beowulf v. 2820 and in the Vespasian Psalter 77.50), cognate to other Germanic terms for the same concept, including Gothic saiwala, Old High German sêula, sêla, Old Saxon sêola, Old Low Franconian sêla, sîla, Old Norse sála. The further etymology of the Germanic word is uncertain. A common suggestion is a connection with the word sea, and from this evidence alone, it has been speculated that the early Germanic peoples believed that the spirits of deceased rested at the bottom of the sea or similar.

[From Mythic Worlds, Modern Words by Joseph Campbell]:

Finnegans Wake is Purgatory because there is no release from the cycle of the book if the reader chooses not to exit on the final page. In Buddhist terms, rebirth as a return to the world of suffering is what is symbolized by the connection between the final "a way a lone a last a love a long the" and the first word of the Wake, "rivverrun." Where, then, is Paradiso? For Campbell, Joyce's Paradiso is the Fourth Book, the book that Joyce did not live to write. In this book, Campbell hypothesizes, Joyce completes the Dantean journey begun in Ulysses. In the Fourth Book, Joyce would have described the indescribable, the state of nirvana or moska, the state of release from rebirth, which Joyce would have symbolized by the sea.

From Wikipedia:

The name Occitan comes from lenga d'òc (i.e. òc language), which comes from òc, the Occitan word for yes. The Italian medieval poet Dante was the first to have recorded the term lingua d'oc. In his De vulgari eloquentia, he wrote in Latin: "nam alii oc, alii si, alii vero dicunt oil" ("some say òc, others say sì, others say oïl"), thereby highlighting three major Romance literary languages which were well known in Italy, based on each language's word for "yes", the òc language (Occitan), the oïl language (French), and the sì language (Italian). This was not, of course, the only defining character of each group.

The word òc came from Vulgar Latin hoc ("this"), while oïl originated from Latin hoc illud ("this [is] it"). Other Romance languages derive their word for yes from the Latin sic, "thus [it is], [it was done], etc.", such as Spanish sí, Western Lombard sé, Italian sì, Catalan sí, or Portuguese sim.

duhkha, trsna, nirvana, marga

It is interesting that the yeast bacteria, Saccharomyces cerevisae *, are eventually killed by the natural product of their metabolism: alcohol. Once they create an environment of about 13% ethyl alcohol, they destroy themselves as a result. To Nature, making 'more' isn't always progress, it seems. Are the manifold by-products and weaponry of mankind destined to end us too?



Arms race, you say? A race to what?
A RACE TO CORONA CERVEZA!


Recently, I've been thinking of how Independence Day and The Lord of the Rings can be given environmentalist readings. Jeff Goldblum will save the planet!



From another movie I like,

Agent Smith: "I'd like to share a revelation that I've had during my time here. It came to me when I tried to classify your species. I realized that you're not actually mammals. Every mammal on this planet instinctively develops a natural equilibrium with the surrounding environment, but you humans do not. You move to an area, and you multiply, and multiply, until every natural resource is consumed. The only way you can survive is to spread to another area. There is another organism on this planet that follows the same pattern. A virus. Human beings are a disease, a cancer of this planet, you are a plague, and we are the cure."



*this is where the Spanish word cerveza comes from.

Remember ROY G BIV? This configuration of the spectrum began with Isaac Newton. The seven colors correspond to the seven days of the week, the seven known planets of Newton's time, and the seven musical notes. In a word: harmony.



rubeus, aureus, flavus, viridis, cæruleus, indicus, violaceus

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, JAY-Z!

I abhor the transience of my time, and detest the sheer density of the present. My struggling efforts are mired in temporal mud, wherein all foundation is lost. It is sunk. It is stuck. It is sucked into the muck.

Time is viscous, and I hate every inspissate tick of the clock.

Hwær cwom mearg? Hwær cwom mago?
Hwær cwom maþþumgyfa?
Hwær cwom symbla gesetu?
Hwær sindon seledreamas?
Eala beorht bune!
Eala byrnwiga!
Eala þeodnes þrym!
Hu seo þrag gewat,
genap under nihthelm,
swa heo no wære.

Where is the horse gone? Where the rider?
Where the giver of treasure?
Where are the seats at the feast?
Where are the revels in the hall?
Alas for the bright cup!
Alas for the mailed warrior!
Alas for the splendour of the prince!
How that time has passed away,
dark under the cover of night,
as if it had never been!

------------------------------------------------------------

"Have I ever told you about the flying babies of Ucayali? They used to flourish in the tropical regions of Peru, where my mother's mother's family once lived. Now, they are very rare. These babies, it is told, do not cry when they are born; instead, they instantly sprout wings and float into the sky. They begin awkwardly, but soon they start to glide and play and so they are often called los delfines del cielo. 'What a sight it is! The wolds of the gods and the fish are turned upside-down!' the old wives of Ucayali would say.

"I once asked my mother's family why these babies could fly and she told me, 'When these babies are born in the cover of the jungle, the air is so warm and the canopy so dark that they think they are still in the womb. Naturally, then, they take off toward the light, toward the sky. Nothing, no laws of gravity or man, stops them on their way, for they are so young that they know nothing of such rules. They are free of any concepts and so do they do as they please. They have faith in pleasure! and that's all they need.'

"Once the infants are several months old, of course, they start to lose their powers. Their feathers slowly shed, and by the age of seven months, they are wingless altogether. Slowly thereafter, they lose all memory of flight, and for the majority of the children's lives, their mothers withhold saying anything about it, for fear of reminding them of lost splendor--for fear of crushing their dreams."

Retired soldiers from the war
Place their pendants on the board--
The shiniest jewels they ever wore--
And utter a word:
"Nevermore."

Where Eden Grove meets Titan Way, that's where the pagans and Christians meet!

How many dreams I have that will never fruition! How many little poems and cries I scribble on indescriminate scraps of paper that will be nothing, absolutely nothing, to anyone! left to erode through all of life's clamor until at last they are forgotten even to the likes of me, who will then someday not even have the pause to ask what all the fuss was about.

Galadriel: The world is changed. I feel it in the water. I feel it in the earth. I smell it in the air. Much that once was is lost, for none now live who remember it.

Boromir: It is a barren wasteland, riddled with fire and ash and dust, the very air you breathe is a poisonous fume.


Sam: Do you remember the Shire, Mr. Frodo? It'll be spring soon. And the orchards will be in blossom. And the birds will be nesting in the hazel thicket. And they'll be sowing the summer barley in the lower fields... and eating the first of the strawberries with cream. Do you remember the taste of strawberries?

Frodo: No, Sam. I can't recall the taste of food... nor the sound of water... nor the touch of grass. I'm... naked in the dark, with nothing, no veil... between me... and the wheel of fire! I can see him... with my waking eyes!

Sam: Then let us be rid of it... once and for all! Come on, Mr. Frodo. I can't carry it for you... but I can carry you!

I like to think that when Alexander the Great first stepped an eager foot across the Indus River, he was gazing eastward, beholding the beauty of the unknown and fantasizing that the strange new civilizations he encountered should someday share a common pulse with Greece. While he attempted to comprehend the entirety of mankind, to become the Great Surveyor, Alexander disseminated his homeland's values, leaving a unifying force in the wake his journey--the footprints of a dream.

What was to him a giant leap for Greece, however, was merely a small step for mankind when seen on a grander scale. He was uknowingly venturing back in time as he traveled forward, deeper and deeper into the Near and Far East; he was in fact reuniting brethren long lost, as his conquests merely explored the forgotten bounds of the Indo-European spread, wherein all culture on the dusty path from Iran to India had some faded, distant affinities.

I also wonder if when one of his men, reluctant and weary, stepped over that far-away river, the vague and intangible feeling came over him that he was somehow still at home and that the soldier whom he thereafter fought was, for the briefest of moments, poised for an embrace, with arms hovering in salutation, before swinging down for the fatal blow.

Here I am, this bag of bones,
A vagabond in fleshy homes.

Impetuously impromptu impostors imperfectly impersonating impassioned imperials... Impotent imps! Impudently impure impeachers, impelling impersonal imperialism! Imparing impeccable impacts! Impiously impinging important imperatives!

Impermissible.
Imperator, impinge impending impacts: impel imperviousness! Implore impetus! Implant impasses! Implement impediments! Impugn impropriety--imprecate! Imprison! Impale!!

Today it finally smelled like Autumn.