Happy Water Tiger Year

It’s Chinese New Years time. This Spring Festival (Lunar New Years) is going to be more subdued than usual because of the Covid – again. This is the year 4719 in the ancient Chinese calendar. I enjoyed some great holiday celebrations during the twelve years I lived in China. We would travel, along with literally …

Soul Magnet

He who has a why to live for can bear almost any how. – Nietzsche My earliest memory is lying on my back in my baby crib, with no separation between my self and the world. Attracted by the three primary colors of red, yellow and blue, I wordlessly watched the gently swaying bird mobile …

U R the Meat of the Metaverse

Reality is frequently inaccurate. – Douglas Adams Back in the 1990s, I was an alpha tester for an online education project being developed at NCSA (The National Center for Supercomputing Applications. The previous sentence was my payment – the right to say I had briefly worked with NCSA at UIUC. Because of that connection, I …

The Inner Journey Home

If you wish to know the divine, feel the wind on your face and the warm sun on your hand. – Buddha We are seekers – you and I. From birth to death, we wander this life seeking the divine in all its myriad guises. But it is the inner journey that leads us home. …

Crescendo – A poem

Coursing through the piquant breeze, swirls of blood orange lifesparks Scrape across the saffron sands like delicate arpeggios. The tranquil fullness of life’s dulcet allegro Bolsters sagging courage with promises of paradise. Once buoyant blooms, long since faded, Lie in tangled heaps across the hallowed fields. The spirit, filled with tangy ripeness, Willfully begins the …

Time’s Bittersweet Inevitability

And Gandalf said, “All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us”. – J.R.R. Tolkien For Christmas I had wanted to give my three wonderful children a gift that only I could give them – my memories of their childhood. For years, I have safeguarded two videotapes of …

Soaring Eagle Spirit

Powerful winds were blowing this morning here on the Pacific Northwest coast. As I walked onto the beach I glanced up to see this majestic eagle gliding gracefully above me. I think of my departed World War Two veteran Dad whenever I see an eagle on the beach. The day he died, I went to …

On a Perpetual Journey

I tramp a perpetual journey. – Walt Whitman The pulse of change throbs away within the journey of the human spirit. Occasionally, a subtle shift in the ethereal breeze triggers primitive instincts. Intangible forces raise the hairs on the back of the neck and stipple the forearms with goosebumps. Ancient longings squeeze the skull and …

On Einstein’s Theory of Happiness

A quiet and modest life brings more joy than a pursuit of success bound with constant unrest. – Albert Einstein Back in 1922, Albert Einstein was giving a series of lectures in Japan. He had just been awarded the Nobel Prize for Physics in November, 1921. While staying at the Imperial Hotel in Tokyo, a …

The Flowers of Autumn

Autumn is a second spring when every leaf is a flower. – Albert Camus The magic of autumn has filled the air with golden ripeness. The shortened days and chilling winds add a pleasing crispness to life. All around, Nature paints the scenery with exuberant sparks from a blazing palette. The seeds of spring have …