Still Gravity

It looks like a little sun with purple rays. This flower followed us in a camping trip through northern Texas.  Pretty flower, pretty foliage with hairy cover - photo taken in Palo Duro Canyon .  "Discovered" in 1898 by the Tahoka Lake in Texas, this plant got a horrible name for science:  Machaeranthera tanacetifolia.  The combination of Greek and Latin means "swordlike anthers" with "fern-like leaves". The "swords" are the filaments and anthers of the flowers.  Tahoka daisy is a better name. It's said that "Tahoka" means "fresh water" or "deep water" in an unidentified American Indian language. The plant also was known as prairie aster since 1832 - that's why I wrote "discovered" in 1898 referring to the use of the Tahoka name.  These daisies love rocks and sand and dryness and the sun. Tough survivors of t

Sunset in Lakepoint State Park, Alabama - License our images  here .         After visiting Eufaula , we had to settle for a night in this state park of Alabama.  The campground is huge and was mostly empty. The only neighbor in our section was a man riding his bike across the country. He started in San Diego, California, and now was close to the end of the trip in Virginia.  We invited him for dinner, but he refused saying that would prefer to retire early to his tent to rest after another grueling day on the road. We understood.  The campground, the marina, and the lake in Lakepoint State Park.  Big gators live in this lake, so we didn't have any interest on swimming in the "beach" by the campground - judge by the photos.

The wild colors of the sunset over Lake Brownwood - License our images  here . Lake Brownwood State Park in central Texas was a nice place to camp. Those days there were amazing sunsets. Fiery, bloody, wild. The hot colors of the West.  Clouds come floating into my life, no longer to carry rain or usher storm, but to add color to my sunset sky.            Rabindranath Tagore

Cruises in the port of Skagway, Alaska -  License our images here .         John Muir wrote in Travels in Alaska : Most people who travel look only at what they are directed to look at. Great is the power of the guidebook maker, however ignorant. I agree. How much do we miss in organized touristic travels designed for the masses?  We're not fan of cruises. Actually, this was the first and only one we've taken. It happened in 2006. But even if taking a cruise doesn't need justification, we have one: Alaska's Inside Passage is faraway, roads are a rarity there, and logistics get complicated. A cruise trip, no matter how hurried these trips are for our taste, made perfect sense - and they were the only way to go for us at the time.   Let's tell the tale of our Alaska cruise "adventure".  Seattle  We arrived at Seattle some days before departure to sightsee the city. The green of the vegetation caugh

The monster alligator - License our images  here . We've encountered many wild alligators hiking in Florida. The biggest one? Probably the animal of the previous photo.  The meeting happened in the area of the  Bear Island campground in Big Cypress National Preserve. The gator swan under a line of trees and came towards us. It showed not fear and got close to the shores. We experienced the uneasy feeling of a prey.  A clap with the hands made it stop. The alligator sank a little and we walked away saying  see you later, alligator . Two more shots of the large beast of the Big Cypress National Preserve.  A hike to the end of the Military Trail in the Kissimmee Prairie Preserve put us in touch with big gators everywhere.  Alligators sun basking on the shores of the Kissimmee River. 

The effect follows a cause. And later, it dresses as a cause for a subsequent effect. What an eternal loop. It resembles the crazy replication of cancerous cells. And then, in the human mind, begins the game of dualist judgements. Good or bad, pretty or ugly, black or white... Labeling and choosing ad infinitum. Combine all this with our thoughts and worries about past, present, and future, and the calm mind is gone. Welcome to the labyrinths of human life - for sure, you know them well.  Our common way to fit such dose of anxiety is to calm the mind with the mind. But thinking doesn't help much. Actually, it makes the problem worse.  This situation has followed the journey of humans since ancient times. The Buddhist doctrine with its central concept around cause and effect - just think about karma and rebirth - has ventured some ideas to escape these negative loops.  The following book shares some propositions.