Tag Archive | Topaz

Those Bright Hours

Oct20

Every now and then over the past two days I’ve pressed the pause button and sat down outside to savor the still-blooming patio flowers and the slowly changing colors of the yarden. But in between pauses and work I’ve focused on a fun and labor intensive project: Jelly.

Not just any jelly… not just rosehip jelly, either, though it did require a bowlful of those. These wild rosehips are small and seedy, not much flesh or juice, so I knew it would take a lot of them. And they’re not easy to harvest; even the rosehips themselves have pickers on them, so I took kitchen snippers out to clip them off by ones and twos, invariably snipping plenty of leaves. I picked out the leaves as I dumped the fruits into a bowl of cold water with a splash of vinegar.

Then onto the crabapples! My gorgeous tree produces the tiniest crabapples I’ve ever seen. The rosehips are small, but the crabapples are no bigger than the rosehips! I plucked them from the tree by ones and twos and threes, reaching overhead for most of them and dropping plenty on the ground. It took awhile, but I refilled the bowl, picked out the leaves, and dumped the crabapples into another bowl of cold water and vinegar wash.

It took an hour to rinse the rosehips and pick off blossom ends and residual stems, but at least the prickers had softened during the soak. I put them in a pot, covered them with water, and simmered for well over an hour, mashing them some about halfway through to release even more rosy essence, adding water a couple times to keep them submerged.

When they were sufficiently softened I scooped the mash into the ancestral chinois cone strainer that my sister from another mister gave me a few years ago, which had belonged to her mother. I let it drip for about five hours, squeezing out more pulp a few times with the elegant wooden pestle that you swirl around the edge simply using the palm of your hand on the smooth handle.

Once I’d extracted all the goodness I could from the rosehips, I put the crabapples on to boil, again keeping them just covered with water, and mashing halfway through cooking. They were just as hard to prepare because I had to pull off each stem using small pliers. I cooked them for only around 45 minutes, as I’d read that if you overcook them you ruin the pectin.

This mash strained for a couple hours before bedtime, with a couple of pressings, and then I left that in the strainer overnight, covered with a mesh tent to keep out the one or two pesky houseflies remaining inside.

In the morning I pulled the rosehip juice from the fridge, swirled the two bowls full together, and dumped them into a larger saucepan with an equal volume of sugar.

I brought this to a rolling boil, then reduced the heat and simmered until the jelly had reduced to the proper thickness. Or maybe just a bit longer. I used the “wrinkle test” to determine when to stop cooking: put a couple of small plates in the freezer, and when you think it’s close, pull one out and drop a spoonful of jelly onto the cold plate, let it sit for two minutes, then draw your finger through it. If it wrinkles on top it’s ready; if not, cook a bit longer. Pretty sure I could have called it good after the first test despite not getting the wrinkle but I let it cook another five minutes until the next test wrinkled.

I knew I wouldn’t get much jelly out of all this effort, but volume wasn’t the point. Some kind of crazy satisfaction from the process was the point, and a few mouthfuls of powerful flavor. I optimistically sterilized six 4-ounce jars, and was delighted to fill five of them. While they processed in the hot water bath for twenty minutes, I scraped the saucepan clean and slathered a piece of buttered toast.

I slowly savored every single tart, sweet, slightly flowery mouthful.

Twenty-four hours and uncounted steps later, the labor intensive fun resulted in five tiny jelly jars full. How I wish I had enough to give some to everyone I want to share it with! Oh well. That’s why they say “Mashed potatoes are so everyone can have enough.”

There are still tons of even smaller rosehips on the bush… will I decide to spend another day harvesting and processing another batch? Maybe… but most of the crabapples left are out of reach so it would be purely rosehip jelly if I do it again. Who knows how the wind blows? Who knows where the time goes?

Meanwhile, as I labored away, the lazy little animals just sat around enjoying the gorgeous fall days. Ok, well, I did sit with them some of the time, grateful for the time to sit, and grateful for those bright hours making such extravagant jelly.

National Abusive Relationship

Oct1

I was just heading out for sunset last night when a friend from Australia called seeking help with a podcast software we both use. After I got her squared away with it, she wanted to chat so I took her out with me. The technical connection was murky, but the personal connection was delightful. We talked about the moral decay of civilization, the polycrises, the lorikeets in her birdbath, and some of our exes, and we laughed a lot. Sometimes it’s all you can do.

Prior to the broken lying man I dated briefly a few years ago, my previous relationship was with — well, another broken man — who, when I said I valued kindness above all, spit out “Kindness? I don’t even know what you mean by kindness.”

From today’s vantage point, I can see that this came from his brokenness. But he hadn’t said it in a sad way, he had dismissed my foremost core value with contempt. I should have dumped him that minute, instead of sticking around for another three years of emotional abuse.

Four decades of research by the Gottman Institute reveals that the primary destructive force in any relationship is contempt; and further, that being the recipient of contempt in a relationship is a good predictor of—this is wild—infectious disease.

Crazy Panela Mexican cheese that you can simply slice and FRY! So I put the last of the beans in a tortilla, added a fried circle of Panela…

Sadly, I’ve been in a number of emotionally abusive relationships. This likely accounts for my now being happily single for so long; and, it also gives me firm ground from which to point out that the American people are in an abusive relationship with their president.

… a fried egg, roasted green chiles…

The lying, meanness, belittling, controlling, gaslighting and contempt I’ve experienced with past partners have parallels in everything this president does. America is in a national abusive relationship with its President. America, he won’t give it up: It’s up to you to extricate yourself from it. It’s not easy to admit how thoroughly you’ve been fooled, how completely you’ve allowed your values to be undermined to the point that you’re willing to hurt yourself and your loved ones just to keep him happy.

… a few corn chips for crunch and a splash of salsa, and fold the whole thing up like a Taco Bell crunchwrap.

I’m retraumatized every time I hear about the president’s performative cruelty, because I see it for what it is. So I’m retraumatized daily, and have to be careful how much of my attention budget I spend on the brilliant satires and shocked screeds that others are writing about his mental collapse, the brittle reports of each bite his regime takes out of the Constitution, the flagrant corruption of the Supreme Court, the complicity of legacy media and the oligarchy, and that’s just the tip of the shitshow.

After years of trying, I’m finally able to feel compassion for those who naively believed his lies, who felt a want, a lack, a need in their lives that they believed he and only he could fulfill. I imagine that some who voted for him weren’t voting based on hatred, mysogyny, and white supremacy, but on their very real needs: economic needs, a sense of security, a feeling of safety or belonging… and so they chose to believe the lies, despite some inner ick that tried to warn them.

I empathize with their longing for someone with seeming strength and certainty to make everything okay, and I understand the sense of betrayal they are starting to experience. I wish that they may find true relief from their suffering. It won’t come from piling more anger, hatred, cruelty and violence on top of what’s already being done in their name. May they come to see reality clearly, forgive themselves for their delusions, and walk away from this abusive relationship before it completely destroys their lives.

Vacation

Sep16

I’m tuning out the world at large for the next ten days, and tuning in close to home with a dear friend coming to visit tomorrow. No politics, no meetings, no work except for teaching the first two classes in Mindfulness Foundations Course; just eating, walking the woods, sitting by the pond, talking, laughing, maybe a short road trip or some other wilderness adventure, relaxing… and savoring this life on earth, one precious day at a time.

Meals and a few outings are mostly planned and subject to spontaneous revision, but tomorrow night is a birthday party! Not for me or for him, but for my new titanium hip which will be one years old. To celebrate I’ve baked this chocolate mayonnaise cake, slathered with chocolate cream cheese frosting. Utter decadence. I can’t find the recipe link for the frosting so here it is:

Chocolate Cream Cheese Frosting

Ingredients

  • 12 ounces (339g) full-fat brick cream cheese, softened to room temperature*
  • 3/4 cup (12 Tbsp; 170g) unsalted butter, softened to room temperature
  • 3 and 1/2 cups (420g) confectioners’ sugar
  • 2/3 cup (55g) unsweetened natural or dutch-process cocoa powder
  • 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
  • 1–2 Tablespoons milk or heavy cream
  • pinch salt

Instructions

  • In a large bowl using a handheld or stand mixer fitted with a paddle or whisk attachment, beat the cream cheese for 1 minute on high speed until completely smooth and creamy. Beat in the butter until combined. Add the confectioners’ sugar, cocoa powder, vanilla extract, 1 Tablespoon milk, and salt and beat on medium-high speed until combined and creamy. Add 1 more Tablespoon of milk to slightly thin out, if desired. Taste, then add another pinch of salt if desired.

This is Topaz, refusing to come inside again last night at dusk. Since her long night out recently she’s been sure to be inside before dark, but last night she just sat there six feet from the door, looking defiantly at me holding it open, inviting her sweetly inside. When I took the photo I said, “This may be the last picture I ever get to take of you, if you don’t come in now.” It was true, it could have been, and I’m grateful that I have this awareness: death is certain, for everyone, and time of death is uncertain. And so I savored that moment of her stubborn determination, and loved her all the more for it. I was also grateful that she came in a couple hours later, and that she came inside tonight before dark.

There was another spectacular sunset this evening which distracted me from last minute preparations, but I paused my endeavors to savor it anyway; and the dishes still got done. It’s time now to lay down my sleepy head, my aching teeth, and my grateful heart.

May we all abide in equanimity, meeting each other as equals, free of bias, attachment, and anger…

May we all have genuine happiness and its causes, and open our hearts with loving kindness to all beings…

May we all be free from suffering, and grow in compassion for all beings…

And may we all remember to be grateful, every living moment of every day.

Her Ninth Life?

Sep1

“This is the second happiest I’ve ever been to see you,” I told Topaz, as I returned to the yard after searching the woods this morning for her little corpse. She didn’t come home last night, which is highly unusual. I was grateful for knowing that she’s well-camouflaged, and survived a month in the wilds a few years ago after she was accidentally kidnapped. Wren and I walked the southeast quarter of the woods within a thirty yard radius, out the front gate and around to the east gate. I was grateful for equanimity and patience. I refrained from shrieking her name incessantly as I did that other time, for days. I wasn’t convinced she was dead this time, but even if she was I was able to accept it: she’s been pampered for ten years, getting her way pretty much every minute of her life, and I tell her I love her every time she walks out the door.

We came in the gate and checked out the pond end of the yard to see if she might be down there, alive or dead. As I headed back up to the house, she came sauntering toward me. It was the second happiest I’ve ever been to see her. This may be her ninth life, but I’m grateful it didn’t end last night. During the time of uncertainty, I remembered Stellar finding her brother’s remains; remembered the wrenching emptiness during her unauthorized journey; remembered her catcussion; and I also remembered stroking her back gently as she stood at the door last night, reminder her to come back to me as I do right after I say “I love you,” and before I say “No birds.” I remembered that my aspiration is to treat her always as if I may never see her again, every time I say goodbye; and that this is an excellent aspiration for any interaction with any being, ever: tenderness and kindness, just in case it’s the last time, because it could be, any time.

I let her inside and fed her, and she slept the whole rest of the day. Wren and I hung out at the pond a little while, where she hid in the rushes to avoid the pesky wasps. They’re everywhere. Sucking the hummingbird feeders dry, and always one circling ominously any time I sit still outside, whether at the pond or on the patio, where I’m spending a little time each day shooting hummingbirds.

Eyes of Wonder

Aug30

I’m grateful we finally got some rain. Yesterday it was overcast all day, drizzled off and on, and the clouds gave a good shower midafternoon. Not enough to make puddles, but enough to make the top layer of clay almost muddy. Little Wren shivered in her Thundershirt and wanted to cuddle all afternoon as I frantically plowed through R.F. Kuang’s surprising, delightful, allegorical, and ultimately very disturbing novel Babel before the digital library reclaimed it today.

I was grateful to wake this morning to sunshine on a cool early autumn landscape with clouds climbing the mountains on their way out of town.

I finally steeled myself to check on the potato harvest in the garden beds, and wasn’t too disappointed. I dug one plant’s yield from each of the small red potatoes and the Yukon golds. The red potato gave a pretty good harvest, and the first gold one did not, so I pulled a second gold and got a sizable handful. Both these potatoes did pretty well considering the grasshopper plague that never let the red ones flower at all, and only allowed a few of the golds to bloom, before demolishing the foliage. I was surprised to dig up what I presume was a skin from the seed potato of the bountiful Yukon gold.

I finally got a good look at the little silver stray that’s been streaking away after only a ghostly glimpse for a couple of months. Or, I think it’s the same cat, a pretty little thing. Topaz was fixated out the window when I walked by and when I stopped to stroke her she growled, but not at me. Only then did I look out and see what she was staring at, and who was staring back at her. It didn’t stay long: I was on my way to let Wren out, and thought it best to get it over with before Topaz wanted out again, to preclude a cat fight. The cat streaked through the fence and left Wren prancing at the gate. I have told Topaz many times since her dear brother’s untimely demise that if she wants another cat she can bring one home, but I guess not this one.

This morning we went for another ramble on soft damp ground through the cool woods, greeting trees we’d not seen for awhile.

We found ourselves at the North Pole, so named the first year I lived here when it designated the northern boundary. I’m grateful I was able to buy the field, forest, and canyon beyond after awhile, so now the North Pole marks the halfway point. We continued on until we came to the Survivor, and sat with her for awhile. She never ceases to amaze me, still living green nearly a century now since she resisted someone’s attempt to cut her up. I always ponder: did she fall over first, or did she get cut first and then fall over? Either way, she’s an inspiration to the power of stoic resistance and determined persistence. All the trees tell stories.

At the base of a decaying trunk, a baby piñon and an even younger juniper grow side by side in harmony.

We follow the course of a natural storm drain to slowly amble home. I’m grateful for the aimless nourishing hour we wandered the woods, remembering again connection, reflecting on those halcyon days when it was all so new. For decades with big dogs it was all new every carefree day. How much has changed, now carrying the weight of the new reich; through a darkening lens, yet still able to see with eyes of wonder so much beauty, and with such sweet, quiet little animal companions. Everything changes. 

A Different Harvest

Aug25
My tragic garlic harvest this year. They seemed to do so well for so long, then at the end they just gave up. You reap what you sow: I wonder if it was because I used bulbs from garlic I grew last year, and they just didn’t have the energy to grow big and strong. Next year, back to Territorial Seeds or a local organic grower. Of course, that’s really this year: the time to plant garlic is next month.

“How many times have you wondered why 44% of the country still supports the president as he directs soldiers to patrol selected cities, orders heavily armed masked men to snatch people off the street, causes prices to rise, gives tax cuts to billionaires, and ends health insurance for millions? That is a complicated question with no short answer, but one of the main reasons is that millions of Americans are hearing lies or don’t know what the president is actually doing … because much of the media has been silenced by or is fearful of Trump.

He knows where his loyal followers get their “news,” and he is making sure those organizations toe the MAGA line.

Trump’s manipulation can be felt from legacy media (see: CBS News and The Washington Post) to local television ownership consolidation to the burgeoning MAGA-mediasphere of podcasts and social media influencers. But it all starts where the press and the president are in each other’s presence on many if not most days.”

Dan Rather, Steady, August 22, 2025

I’ve harvested most of the slicer tomatoes prematurely, because now that the grasshoppers have demolished everything else I didn’t cover, they’re coming for the maters! I put the first haul into a brown paper bag a few days ago and they’re already glowing up with a little warm color.

Our “local” Denver 9 News is on the chopping block. Kyle Clark, the host of the best regional newscast I’ve ever encountered, is making clear to his viewers, objectively, that selling out to Fox isn’t a great idea. Television is inherently dangerous, as Jerry Mander points out in his first book, especially from a political point of view, because“it is the one speaking to the many.” His work was terribly historically informed and prescient, and it’s only gotten more so since this 1991 interview in The Sun Magazine.

“The fantasies of utopian existence promoted by proponents of the technological, industrial mode of life for the last one hundred years are now demonstrably false. That’s not what we got. What we got was alienation, disorientation, destruction of the planet, destruction of natural systems, destruction of diversity, homogenization of cultures and regions, crime, homelessness, disease, environmental breakdown, and tremendous inequality. We have a mess on our hands. This system has not lived up to its advertising; in developing a strategy for telling people what to do next, we first have to make that point. Life really is better when you get off the technological/industrial wheel and conceive of some other way. It makes people happier. It may not make them more money, but getting more money hasn’t worked out. Filling life with commodities doesn’t turn out to be satisfying, and most people know that.”

Jerry Mander, in conversation with Catherine Ingram

One nice harvest surprise was this handful of small russet potatoes, which grew from an organic grocery store potato that sprouted before I could use it. I stuck it in a tub of dirt in the early spring and it grew in the sunroom for a month before it could go outside. Despite predation, against the odds, it came to fruition.

It’s gone from bad to worse and we’ve been prey the whole time, utterly caught in the sticky web of technology and now unable to extricate ourselves. I’m as guilty as anyone, but I’m grateful that mindfulness practice is an antidote that helps me keep some attentional autonomy. As Mander says, television “is most efficient at centralized, top-down usage which imposes imagery and programs people accordingly. The imagery remains in them and then they imitate the imagery. It is a powerful brainwashing and homogenizing machine.”… (and now by extension most of what the internet offers)

Rocky Mountain beeplant is among the most underrated wildflowers, and one of the most spectacular. It’s also a mad bee magnet. I sow the seeds throughout the yarden at the end of summer, and hope for the best. What comes will come.

My voice feels like a cry in the dark. I struggle to nourish hopeful energy because the forecast trajectory is dismal, as laid out in this Bioneers podcast with Thom Hartmann, who “warns of the existential threat of a virulent new oligarchy: the third frontal assault by the ultra-wealthy in American history to use their concentrated economic power to seize maximum political power – and overthrow democracy once and for all.”

Two honeybees of distinctly different colors seem in conflict over a blossom…

Robert Reich names the current president as the culmination of these decades of staggering wealth inequality, explaining that Democrats failed during that time to take actions that could have reined in the power grab. His interpretation adds another nefarious facet to Hartmann’s theory, twisting the script so that the worst of the oligarchs now presents himself as the people’s savior. Reich suggests that it’s not too late, and that if Democrats (and Independents, I might add) would actually unify and undertake specific actions they could regain the reins of the country.

from Robert Reich, Sunday Thought
… but they seem to negotiate an agreement to share the abundant resources, neither taking more than they need and each getting enough.

We reap what we sow. Where we place our attention matters. For forty years Big Money have been sowing seeds that ultimately bloomed into Project 2025 and curried this regime to implement it. While most of the rest of us let our attention wander down the insidiously addictive techno-entertainment wormhole, we failed to notice the rug being slowly pulled out from under our relatively stable democracy. The deceit was intentional and highly effective.

My friend John was a passionate student of history. He knew whereof he spoke when he said, “We lived in the best times” — before the third wave of Oligarchy began to crest. Turns out history is relevant after all. I eschewed its study through all my school years but the more I learn of it now the more this current moment makes sense. When people ask me “How did we get here?” I can now say, “It’s complicated…” instead of throw up my hands in impossible confusion. As my understanding of the history of this country broadens beyond the founding fathers and fourth-grade lessons on Virginia’s conquerors, my despair softens into compassion, and I renew my commitment to mindfulness practice and the skills that continue to strengthen my resilience in this challenging political and social landscape. I’m happy to share.

It’s not all froglets all the time, there are still a few tadpoles left swimming around. But… it’s mostly froglets!

The little froglet in front looks like it’s missing its left eye–and possibly a leg. Amazing how it survives, against the odds, in a supportive, nurturing environment; a community of froglets standing together.
I grabbed the camera to catch these twins knowing I only had a second before they fled. I didn’t notice it was set to manual for moon photography, so the result was a study in whites. I’m grateful for the ready editing technology in the Photos software that enabled me to pull some color and definition out of a careless mistake. I’m grateful for resilience.

Good Neighbors

Aug18
I’m grateful the little bonsai rose is recovering from its grasshopper defoliation.
One day the froglets will grow big enough to eat this grasshopper, but for now there’s a curious equanimity in their encounter. May I bring the same attitude to neighbors who are so different from me.

The froglets are very good neighbors even though their neighborhood is getting crowded. I have to walk ever so carefully, even ten feet from the pond on the flagstone, to be sure I don’t step on one. They’re literally underfoot! They are tiny, and fragile, and not 100% coordinated yet, so their jumps can be feeble and a little wonky; and also, they don’t really understand about giant feet yet, that they need to get out of the way of shadows.

I keep intending to set some coins out around the edge of the pond for scale to show exactly how tiny they are. But for now I’ll just use a cat: the frog above is the same frog as the one below, on the pond edge, just to the left of the furry hip of Topaz.

You can see several stages of metamorphosis in this image, if you look closely at each tadpole and froglet.
(the next morning)

The best cheese sandwich of the weekend was warmed Brie, sliced homegrown cabbage and red onion, mayonnaise, and organic grape jelly on of course homemade sourdough.

It was a lovely weekend, with ample outside time and the barest hint of pre-fall in the air, a slight cessation of the brutal heat and a minute rise in humidity. Wildfires in this part of the state (the nation, the continent) are rapidly getting contained with a little help from the weather and a lot of effort by brave men and women who are good neighbors to all of us. Whether they left homes nearby me to fight these fires or left homes in another state, right now they are my neighbors. The littles and I enjoyed another stunning sunset with our good neighbors to the west, who came to say hello over the fence and lingered for awhile in companionable silence before going home for dinner.

Speaking of neighbors, many people aren’t aware of the shooting at the CDC a week ago last Friday; it wasn’t a mass casualty event so it didn’t generate sensational television coverage. “Only” one person was killed, a police officer. But it was a mass trauma event, for hundreds of CDC staff and their families, and thousands of people who work in public health. Our neighbors. A foremost epidemiologist, Katelynn Jetelina, discussed the attack and its ramifications for public health workers, the regime’s non-response, and how average Americans can demonstrate support for healthcare workers in this essential, and increasingly stressful and traumatizing, field of public service. It’s forty minutes of lucid and moving discussion. Many of my neighbors work in healthcare, a lot of them in our rural hospital system which is on the chopping block with upcoming cuts to Medicaid. Are any of your neighbors healthcare professionals? How can you show them some appreciation?

Speaking of good neighbors, I was grateful this morning to be invited onto a press call about the destruction of the Social Security Administration. My contribution followed former SSA chair Martin O’Malley’s chilling assessment of the regime’s efforts to demolish social security. You can watch the press conference here if you’d like to hear just how badly the regime has already damaged “the only agency in America that runs a 2.6 trillion dollar surplus,” and also hear a couple of regular folks talk about what social security means for them and their neighbors.

Can’t we all be good neighbors to each other? Planet Earth is our only neighborhood, for all of us, human and non-human alike.

This evening, I only counted a dozen tadpoles left in the water. I know there are more I didn’t see, but I saw just as many froglets in one square foot at the edge of the pond. I’m not fond of the algae, but the froglets are, so I’m not about to scoop it out. It’s an essential part of their neighborhood, which is all they have and all they know.

RX: Metamorphosis

Aug3

What a marvelous sight greeted me at the bottom of the stairs this morning! Topaz was watching a baby bull snake lying still on the floor. I only saw it when I took a step and it wiggled away. I fended off Wren and picked it up gently. It was so gentle and calm, and curled and crawled around my hand as I considered the best place to release it, but it never panicked or thrashed.

After I released it into the wood pile, where I hope it finds enough mice to remain there forever and live long and grow big, I came back inside and tried to put her collar on Topaz as she knelt at her food bowl, the way I often do. I reached around her neck with the bell and she jerked and flipped around wide-eyed. I tried again now that she knew it was just me, but she wrenched away; after I washed my hands she accepted the collar willingly as usual. I’m grateful for the little dose of wonder that started my day.

One reason I practice gratitude is because of my innate pessimism. Well, I can’t say innate in the sense that I was born with it, I’m not sure I was. But it came to me early through a series of prophetic dreams that started while I was still in single digits. So this article about likely societal collapse didn’t shock me as it might some of you, should you choose to read it. History shows that increasing wealth inequality consistently precedes collapse, contends economist and international relations expert Dr. Luke Kemp in his new book Goliath’s Curse, which analyzes 5000 years of human civilizations’ collapses.

“…as elites extract more wealth from the people and the land, they make societies more fragile, leading to infighting, corruption, immiseration of the masses, less healthy people, overexpansion, environmental degradation and poor decision making by a small oligarchy. The hollowed-out shell of a society is eventually cracked asunder by shocks such as disease, war or climate change.”

Last night was Zoom Cooking with Amy. We chose a simple pasta sauce made from sautéed zucchini, which we blended with some garlic, parmesan, salt&pepper of course, and a little pasta water. We spooned that into our bowls, topped with pasta and more parm, and I sautéed a handful of frozen snow peas from the spring garden in the hot zucchini pan.

Sound familiar? Kemp lays the imminent demise of our so-called civilization at the feet of “leaders who are ‘walking versions of the dark triad’ – narcissism, psychopathy and Machiavellianism”; and while he says that a fundamental transformation of society on a global scale could save our species, “the large, psychopathic corporations and [world leaders] which produce global catastrophic risk” make self-destruction more likely.

This reflects, to one degree or another, my fundamental world view since I was a child. It’s less popular and less acceptable than believing in aliens, so I don’t articulate it often. It’s something of a relief to read it so clearly outlined by a scholar of human cultural history.

Kemp suggests that “even if you don’t have hope, it doesn’t really matter. This is about defiance. It’s about doing the right thing, fighting for democracy and for people to not be exploited. And even if we fail, at the very least, we didn’t contribute to the problem.”

Hope is a conundrum for me. It can mean a passive wish for good things, but I prefer the interpretation of Joanna Macy, who died last month at 94, that hope is a verb, that how we live matters, and that this time in history is one of great unraveling and also of the potential for a Great Turning.

My life’s trajectory continues to lean into celebrating this fragile, spinning globe and all the Life that supports our tiny existence. It’s really a question of perspective, of world view: Domination or collaboration? Each of us chooses how to live, every living moment of every day.

Though it’s taking a lot longer than from tadpole to frog, I’m grateful for my own metamorphosis through the years. And grateful to photograph a fully formed froglet flying through the water—next challenge: film it.

A Quiet Day at Home

Jul30

I’ve found another way to use the last few drops of maple syrup that always linger in the bottle after you think it’s empty: it floats on the latté foam! A sweet treat, a small triumph.

I’m grateful for a quiet day at home with pretty clean air inside and out, for accomplishing some household projects inside and out, for tender connections with nature throughout the day.

We took a nice long ramble through the woods this evening, and found somewhere new. It’s a small thrill to find myself somewhere new in my old familiar forest.

This morning at the pond another something new, another small thrill: The first frog’s forelegs!

And this evening, something else new, a little meeting of the minds on the side of the pond. Look at these vastly different organisms all getting along despite belonging to three different phyla: the snail, Mollusca; the tadpole, Chordata; and the dragonfly nymph, Arthropoda. How is it we humans can’t get along better? We’re all the same, five levels down the animal classification tier from Phylum to the smallest division. As members of the same species, we have a lot more in common with each other than we have different.

I’m grateful for all that is good in my life, and all the gifts of this precious day that will never come again.

Legs!

Jul21

Let’s get the food shot out of the way first, because simple and delicious though this lunch was, it wasn’t the highlight of the day. Pretty much the same thing as the past two days, except with havarti instead of cheddar, no egg, and some chopped tomato and apricot included with the onion greens pesto, mayo, and bean mashup. I’m grateful I’ve learned that good food doesn’t have to be complicated, fancy, or difficult.

And in fire news, it was mostly cloudy with some drizzles today which must have helped the firefighters across the western slope a lot, and certainly made for a more comfortable day for those of us with challenging lungs.

But for today’s big JOY: I was beside myself this afternoon to discover that some of the tadpoles have actual legs! At last!

I needed a second opinion, so I asked Topaz to investigate since she could get closer to the water than I could. She confirmed my assessment, and suggested I bring down the husband camera.

There are two legged-ones who show up in this video, one near the beginning and one at the end. I might have missed another one or two…

Husband camera confirmed, and I was especially delighted to catch this one with just the bare beginnings of legs. Most of those I observed tonight, maybe three percent of all the tadpoles, had slightly better developed legs than this one.

As though mama is keeping tabs… As far as I know, each of these images is of a different tadpole. I’m grateful for the gift of being able to observe the miracle of metamorphosis in real time in my own backyard.