The Present

The past is prologue - immutable.  We can know it fully—or as fully as our filters of memory and ego allow—but can change nothing.  We cannot return – not even to cross an uncrossed t, nor dot a forgotten i.  We may, in memory, relive our joys or consider our regrets, but only as reference.

The future is ours to influence and shape – but not to fully control.  The outcome—subject to myriad other factors—is as protean as next year’s weather forecast.

Confluence - East and West Forks Multnomah Creek

It is the present—the ephemeral, yet omnipresent confluence of past and future—that we inhabit.  It is the seam where we draw together the lessons from our past with our hopes and aspirations the future and weave the fabric of our lives.  

The Gorge

I go to the Gorge to celebrate,  
   - to hike for happiness.  

Dog Mountain in full bloom

  I go to the Gorge to commiserate,
     - and hike away my sorrows. 













I go there to spend time with friends, 

Wahkeena Creek in autumn

And I go there when I need to be alone. 

Confluence - East and West Multnomah Creek

I drink it in, and sometimes overdo it, and need a day to recover.

Like a hangover –
Sometimes I need to over-indulge to fully recharge. 

The Gorge is my drug; I am addicted.  

Gourmand

Among the words that takes on a funny twist in translation is ‘Gourmand’. 
In English, people use this interchangeably with ‘gourmet’ – an epicurian lover of food. 
In the original French, it’s not a noun, it’s an adjective.  ‘Un homme gourmand’ is indeed ‘a man who loves food’, but the suggestion is that (how do we put this delicately) quality is not so important as is quantity.  

It’s not a compliment. 

The Abyss

Nietzsche said that when you ‘… stare into the abyss, the abyss stares back at you.’ 
Believers of all stripes say that if you send your wishes to heaven, your prayers will be answered. 
And Jesus said that ‘… the Kingdom of God is within you.” 

Seems that whether you cast your gaze downward, upward, or inward, what you see is a mirror. 

He Who Learns

He who learns must suffer.
And even in our sleep
pain that cannot forget
falls drop by drop upon the heart.
And in our own despair,
against our will,
comes wisdom to us
by the awful grace of God.

     - Aeschylus

Another Mother [Father] For Peace

“Another gentle season haunted by echoes of young laughter forever stilled. 

With one voice we cry—Enough!  An end to killing now!”

    - Another Mother For Peace

How Hard Was it Raining?

It poured incessantly throughout the gray night before Jackie left Hanalei; raindrops echoing off the tin roof of the Paper shack like green scales falling from the hide of a heartbroken mythical, magic dragon.