Still Gravity

Shoshin…  Kensho…  Satori...  Beginner's mind. Seeing. Awakening. Spells for lunar insomnia. In the beginner’s mind there are many possibilities, but in the expert’s there are few.           Shunryu Suzuki

The houses of Stiltsville - License our images  here .                             Launching from No Name Harbor in Key Biscayne, the first house is a mile away. Stiltsville were 27 houses built on the shallow waters of the bay. This aquatic neighborhood was born in the 1930s. Only seven homes survive today. Climbing on them is not allowed. Being the fall, the water was flat and cold. Very nice paddle.             Cape Florida and Key Biscayne from Stiltsville (the historical lighthouse on the tip of the island).          

Entrance to Black Creek Trail - License our images  here . Biscayne National Park is a marine playground. We launched kayaks, rode the bikes, and did short hikes. 26 miles of biking through the Biscayne Trail - a dirt path tracking a canal. By Black Point Marine, we walked the Black Creek Trail. Across the national park visitor center is Homestead Bayfront Park with its small beach - not much of a beach. Early morning, we got a nice photo there.  Morning in Homestead Bayfront Park. On the kayaking side, great trip to Stiltsville launching from Key Biscayne -  check pics here . 

Western ballads with old tales by a singer from Arizona that became a legend. "The boy with the teardrop in his voice" was also a hero that fought in WW2 at age 17.   I like his 1959 album  Gunfighter Ballads and Trail Songs  which holds the famous "El Paso" and the rediscovered hit "Big Iron". To the town of Agua Fria, rode a stranger one fine day Hardly spoke to folks around him, didn't have too much to say No one dared to ask his business, no one dared to make a slip For the stranger there among 'em had a big iron on his hip. Columbia Records once rejected two songs of Marty Robbins for being too "controversial" for the political jungle of the sixties.  One of them was, " My Own Native Land ". Is it right that we should give And give until it hurts To a foreign land that treats us Just like so much dirt Those who lead us have forgotten Love is in the soul Love cannot be purchased with The promise of more gold. The other one,

Back to the tent for a week in a state park close to the city of St. Augustine - License our images  here .          Anastasia State Park is a bike ride away from the action of old St. Augustine, Florida. In winter, camping here is a delight, especially for the absence of insects and the lonely beach. One night, a smart raccoon assaulted our cooler in the gazebo. The unit felt from the picnic table and woke us. We ended giving the troublemaker a big scare. This worked well. It didn't try again.  The hike to Cape Francis in the St. Augustine Inlet was nice. We found many birds on the Atlantic shores pushed by strong winds and furious waves. There were also illusions of ships sailing on the sand - the beach hiding the inlet.  Someone was sailing on the sands of Cape Francis.         The city with its old castle, old houses, and... old, old, old sme

Interesting poet. Not because he was Austrian or an avid traveler or loved married women - especially if they were painters.  Neither because he was a fan of the band of Lenin and his Bolsheviks or for saying that "if your daily life seems poor, do not blame it; blame yourself".     "Falling stars" is a beautiful poem - translation by Albert Ernest Flemming.  Do you remember still the falling stars that like swift horses through the heavens raced and suddenly leaped across the hurdles of our wishes--do you recall? And we did make so many! For there were countless numbers of stars: each time we looked above we were astounded by the swiftness of their daring play, while in our hearts we felt safe and secure watching these brilliant bodies disintegrate, knowing somehow we had survived their fall.

         Rainy day in New Orleans - License our images  here .                 These are old 35mm memories of New Orleans before the havoc brought by Hurricane Katrina. This was the look of its colorful mix of French, Spanish, and Creole architecture in the year 2000.  New Orleans is the city of jazz and Mardi Grass - French for "Fat Tuesday" -, a wild carnival running since 1699. Also the town with the oldest cathedral in the country, the one dedicated to Louis IX of France or Saint Louis - a king killed by disease in Tunisia during the Eight Crusade.  We toured the old cemeteries. A walk among tombs raised from the ground to avoid parades of dead bodies through the narrow streets of the city during the frequent floods of this region.  We took a boat in the Mississippi River to visit the Chalmette Battlefield. This was the place of the Battle of New Orleans in 1815, the last big battle of the War of 181

Ask the meaning of "mamihlapinatapai" and you'll get: "A look that without words is shared by two people who want to initiate something, but that neither will start."  Ask the meaning of "pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis" - the longest English word - and you'll get...   (blank)   Nonsense.

Søren Kierkegaard published this book in 1849.  The bird keeps silent and waits: it knows, or rather it fully and firmly believes, that everything takes place at its appointed time. What can we learn from this dose of existentialism?  Embracing the world as is and be joyful. The keywords are acceptance, tranquility, emptiness. Difficult things to grasp in these busy days.  The bird keeps silent and suffers. However much heartache it has, it keeps silent. It does not complain; it accuses no one; it sighs only to fall silent again. Do you complain? Do you accuse others? 

The campground, island sunset, and the Dalí Museum - License our images  here .          Old military fort morphed into county park at the entrance of Tampa Bay, Florida. The camp is in a small island patrolled by a horde of friendly racoons. Old fort walls with rusted artillery pretending to guard the beautiful beaches. Proud retirees full of wrinkles.  A day in St. Petersburg: visit to the new Dali Museum and a great dine in the downtown. The museum is bigger. We still remember the little one visited in the 1990s. A lot of glass and clarity to enjoy better the art of the creative Spanish master.

No anymore.  He doesn't need it because our brains are lost in social media. There is no time for proper thinking. Our minds dull following others and forgetting and becoming copies.  People in hypnotic trance are not threat for Big Brother. When thinking is gone, gone is the brain.   Old George Orwell got it backward. Big Brother isn't watching. He's singing and dancing. He's pulling rabbits out of a hat. Big Brother's busy holding your attention every moment you're awake. He's making sure you're always distracted. He's making sure you're fully absorbed. He's making sure your imagination withers. Until it's as useful as your appendix. He's making sure your attention is always filled. And this being fed, it's worse than being watched. With the world always filling you, no one has to worry about what's in your mind. With everyone's imagination atrophied, no one will ever be a threat to the world.           Chuck Palahniuk, 

Tiny tiny, the little green frog is trapped behind a mosquito net. She tries to escape, but no luck. She is not that tiny.   On the other side, comes the grey hunting cat. Danger lurks, but the frog is safe trapped behind the net.  Weird stalemate: the same thing that traps, keeps the danger away.  Parodies of life.

View from our campsite - License our images  here .  Wintertime. Neither mosquito nor alligators by our campsite. This is the Savannas Recreation Area, a swampy expanse in St. Lucie County, Florida. The campground office is a cracker house built between 1890 and 1912. It was moved here for preservation. Lot of wildlife around. Many birds wandering through the camp. 

Tai Chi is good for the health. And it's one of the few things in life that, like a master once said, "the older you are the better". Who "invented" Tai Chi is a question without a right answer. Too many tales, myths, interests, and rivalries around what we know about the Chinese art. Too much fabrication and romance. And at the end, who cares about who "invented" this system of gentle exercises.  We don't need its history to get the benefits. Nothing will change in the practice if we learn that it was "invented" by the immortal  Zhang Sanfeng  or some folks from the Chen, Li, Wang, or the Liu families. Neither will change if we call it Tai Chi, Taijiquan, "cotton boxing", or... whatever you want.  Tai Chi was what it was and now is what it is. One thing is sure: tomorrow will be different.  Focus on principles, relax, and practice. Don't worry too much about old tales and theories besides for cultural reasons.  (This is an

The old Cheyenne Train Depot - License our images  here . Hungry and tired, we entered Cheyenne. Night was falling and there was nobody waiting for us. The downtown of the capital of Wyoming was a desert. Finally, we found a guy walking through the Depot Plaza. He pointed us to Sanford’s Grub & Pub. Food was good, or we were starving and didn't know better. We still remember the huge colorful dishes where the food was served in this restaurant. Again, they were huge. Feeling better, we went back to the plaza.  Cheyenne was another of those transcontinental railroad cities that dotted the old West. The United States is big, and the passengers needed places to stop.  The railroad of the Union Pacific crossed the town in its route through the Dakota Territory since 1867 - this was the old name for Wyoming. Still today, you can see a lot of trains around here. Cheyenne was known as "Cross Creek Crossing"

A phone left at home and the mind goes wild.  What if... an accident? What if... a robber?  What if... a medical emergency? What if... no access to the web?  What if...?  What if...? What if...?   There was a time when there was no IF. Neither cell phone. The closest was the phone cabin. A quarter per call.  Those were the times of the paper maps. And we survived. Cell phones are great tools but... don't let them rule your life.  Escape senseless fear. Escape fear mongering.

The ancient world of video tapes - License our images  here .          They were the coolest gizmos in the world of television. The magic memory behind movies and shows. Now, the expensive pieces of equipment lay in broken pieces. Crushed by the new advances in technology. Do you remember Digital Betacam or D1, D2, D3, and D5? Probably not.  Today's stuff will follow the same path. The new replaces the old. This process never ends.  

Crossing the famous dam between Nevada and Arizona - License our images  here .         2010 gave us a big traffic jam at the Hoover Dam. Causes? Security checks and the unfinished new bypass. Everybody had to go over the arch gravity dam.  This engineering marvel closed the gap of the Black Canyon of the Colorado River. Built in five years, it created Lake Mead, the largest water reservoir in the country. During WW2, spies posing as tourists were captured here.  After the crossing, we rolled out into the dryness of Arizona.