Ladybug

Red soft shell
polka dotted black
encase
simple life.
Crawling, tickling, exploring.
Conquering arm forests,
feeling, falling.
Aimless discoverer of
New Worlds:
wrinkle and nail.
Walking
in circles unknowingly
before shell opens
and flies away.

Acid Rain

It was raining in slo for the first time in a while a few nights ago, so I thought it might be kind of romantic to just lie out in the rain and let it patter my face for a while. But I just ended up lying in a puddle, looking at the dim purple sky for about five minutes before I realized that I wasn't having much fun being so wet and cold. Maybe that's why many people just don't enjoy nature very much, and take so many precautions to protect themselves from it, to distance it by controlling it in some way...because nature, despite all its beauty, has a tendency to make people wet and cold when they'd rather be under a blanket, drinking hot chocolate by an electric space heater.

A Storm is Nigh

As I step outside of my house, my body immediately feels that something is different. A slight shade of gray seems to penetrate every object in the cloudy afternoon light. Even my gray/silver car seems to be a bit gloomy today. A warm breeze passes across my face and the trees in my front yard shiver despite the eerie warmth. The air, though not sticky, feels moist and threatening. I take a deep breath and smell nothing. No wet pavement smell, no smell of grass, no smell of garbage from the overflowing cans in the side yard. Nothing. Besides the hum of cars passing aimlessly through SLO on the 101, nothing is heard. Suddenly, de ja vous hits me and I am feeling something that I've felt before: the advent of some mystery.
Stepping out from under the eave of my front porch, I look up: Clouds cover the entire central coast in a dark gray blanket at about 3000 feet with beautiful wispy patterns. It looks as though some giant had taken his wire whisk to a meringue pie and whipped it up into beautiful wavy patterns, and as one large puzzle it moves with uncanny uniformity toward the north.
A storm is nigh.

Freezing Coastline

This past Saturday I had the opportunity to drive down to Montana de Oro in the morning before the sun had much of a chance to warm things up for the day. The drive out to the trail was spectacular and the faint smell of campfires filled the cool, moist air giving the winter a whole new dimension. Just last week the temperatures here in SLO were averaging around 75 degrees and I was wearing shorts and tee-shirts all week long. That attire applied to this week's weather equals hypothermia!
As my sister and I started out on the trail, the familiar smell of sweet grass and coastal shrubs filled the air. The only warmth provided was given by the direct light of the sun. The breeze was very cold. The trail winded down through the grass and spilled out on the cliffs, dropping off down to vertical wet shale beneath.

The wind was whipping up the sides of the cliffs providing the perfect draft for hawk and seagull to ride upon effortlessly.

As we walked along the cliff's edge and looked out onto the sea, low cumulus clouds cast innumerable shadows on the water, giving the ocean an even more rugged feel. This picture was ever-changing as the wind pushed clouds in and out of the sun's view, making for a very thermally dynamic hike. At the water's edge, creative rock formations channeled water in and out of the area, creating tide pools for some, and providing a source for "anger management" on others where waves were free to crash in any which direction. One corridor provided a very straight, ever-narrowing route by which the water could travel. Because of its violence upon entry, the white water seemed to be purer than usual. In fact, if taken out of context, it looked as though an avalanche were approaching the shoreline in a perfect tone of white. A very sad and battered log had somehow made its way into this corridor and was stuck underneath some of the rocks at the end of the water's path. It flowed in and out and in again, not really minding the mundane nature of its activity. I doubt if that log will ever find its way out of that gully - it's trapped there by the constant force of white water slamming it against rock and slowly deteriorating it into tiny chunks of bark - death by solitary confinement and torture.

As I looked up after pointing the log out to my sister, I saw something that made me do a double-take. Could that be snow in the distance? At first it was hard to tell because a few gray clouds were hovering over the top of the distant range, but a short minute later, the clouds retreated, revealing a healthy covering of snow on the coastal range mountains just east of Cambria.

I did my very best to take pictures of it by changing resolution, aperture values, lighting options, and the above was the very best that I could come up with. A bit difficult to make out, but nevertheless, SNOW! I felt as if I were transported to the Oregon or Washington coastline for a moment, and enjoyed the unique sight.

More hawks and gulls danced along the updrafts as I meandered back to my car, looking back every minute or two to make sure that the snow was still there.

Air

Wednesday's class this past week was spent on a hike up to Rockslide Ridge - a place that I hadn't yet had a chance to get to over the years. Our time was absolutely gorgeous:

















Air is a strange substance: Invisible, but visible. Necessary, but destructive. Able to be both cold and warm, it does not suffer. It cannot be traced, but can only be spotted. It's through the transparent lens of this cool breeze that I am able to see the beauty of the hills that surround me. On this day in particular, one can, with good enough vision, see all the way to Santa Barbara. Granted a little more elevation, the channel islands would be easily visible to the naked eye, though almost 100 miles away.
Air is a channel - a medium. Light is able to travel through paths of empty space as well as non-empty space. Its heat is transmitted through the winds, but is not dissipated within it. Really, we live in an aquarium - an aquarium of air, or perhaps an "airium" would be a more appropriate term. Walking on the bottom of our sea, we don't see the sea around us. Our gills constantly filter out the good from the bad and an ancient cycle is once again repeated. In one sense, we are all little "SpongeBob's," going about our business, soaking up what we need to, squeezing it out when we become bored.
How is it that though it cannot be seen, its forces can be observed even on my own body. It can be FELT, and TASTED, but cannot be seen. How then can I trust it? Is it real? Perhaps it's just a big hoax, but it can't be. It resists my body when riding a bike, I can feel it entering and leaving my lungs, I can smell something like parsley by means of it... and so I know it is there by faith and nothing else. Sight, I suppose, could be just as relative as any other sense. But I do not nullify the existance of a book because I cannot taste it! For the same reason, I cannot nullify the existance of air because I cannot see it.
Air is a strange substance: Invisible, but visible. Necessary, but destructive. Able to be both cold and warm, it does not suffer. It cannot be traced, but can only be spotted.

Growing Out of Simplicity

Lately I've been thinking about the evolution of my experiences of nature as my life has progressed. I will blame my mother for my appreciation of it, as I'm fairly sure it was her intention to enthrall her son with its beauty. What I have noticed is that complexity grows with age, and as we grow up, so do our eyes.
As a child, I remember playing in the yard by myself. I wasn't an only child, but my sister was still pretty young, and besides, I had my Tonka trucks to play with. But when those Tonka trucks got boring, I would set them aside and go to the sandbox to play with the tiny rocks that get stuck in your hair. I would sit for hours and carefully study the sand: how it sifted so easily through my fingers. I could create quicksand by cupping my hands into a funnel and watching the sand slowly seep through the bottom and back into my sandbox. The tiny rocks were each different, and they had many different colors as well! On occasion, some would find its way into my mouth, where it would crunch every now and then to remind me that rocks are not to be eaten.
The question is not, "what makes sand so interesting," but rather, "why don't I do that today?" What is it about our busy lives that make us unable to sit down and sift sand? Are we too proud to be enamored by such "petty" observations? Life is about the complex things! The atoms, the reproductive cycles, the anatomy. We murder to dissect... and not just in a physical sense, but in an emotional sense too. As we grow in age, we shrink in child-like humility. The simple does not satisfy anymore. We need something more stimulating! To keep our heads thinking!
I think that God meant for nature to be something mindless, where He can say, "see how simple it all is?" I'm hoping that as I approach even higher numbers in age, that my mind will be satisfied... with the simple.

Open Your Eyes

How dull and deaf and dumb we are! How blind! How forgetful! Fresh air greets me in the morning, filling me with life. Fresh cool water cleans my face and quenches a parched mouth. "Ahhh." New sunlight warms the earth and guides my day's path. Quiet wind delivers packages of scents and provides a path along which the mockingbird's song rides. My legs pump vigorously and blood rushes to them in pulses of life. We feel the ground beneath our feet. Pain. Exhaustion. Adrenaline. Peace. Loneliness. Gratitude. Grace. Love.
And yet the world stamps these out. Against these things there is no law, except for perhaps the law of economy. Time to go, time to come, time for class, time for bed. Hang your head. Talk on the phone. Get your job. Be prosperous and enjoy life!
Open your eyes! Life is not the humdrum of economy, but rather the glorious opus of nature which patiently awaits our gaze.

A Bird's Eye View

1/13/06

Being high gives me a thrill. I don't know whether it's the fact that I've always been a pretty tall guy, or whether it's something that my parents installed in me from a child. Or maybe my enthusiasm stems from some genetic trait. Whatever the reason, I absolutely love hiking mountains, rock-hopping up creeks, riding in elevators, preferring lunch on the 38th floor of a building that I worked in two summers ago... Perhaps that's part of the reason that I was so motivated to earn my Private Pilot's licence this past summer.

Flying is a passion of mine as well as a very expensive hobby. I first discovered my love for flight from my grandfather, who has flown for 60 years now. And now that I have my licence, I absolutely must maintain my skills. This is accomplished by taking flights in the area and abroad every now and then, just to get some practice in. After three weeks of being "grounded" due to weather, it was high time that I get into the air again.

Flying in this area is absolutely breath-taking. My flight on this particular day was no exception. I planned on taking off at around 3:30 so that I could get an hour or two in before the sun set. Not that I don't love flying during sunsets, (in fact it's my favorite time to fly) but this particular flight was a "mission." My mission was to test my skills and knowledge in all of the practical areas so that I could properly "brush up" on everything I had learned in training. Here is a description of my flight from an "ecoliterature" standpoint:


There is something comforting about the smell of fuel and oil. Just as a trucker befriends his semi and calls it home, so does a pilot befriend his cockpit. He knows it inside and out. The best pilot is the one that uses the controls as another appendage. "Become one with the plane."
Amidst the brainwaves firing in my head, I imagine myself as a hawk as I first lift off. My direction and speed are in my control.
The first thing that I notice on taking off is the majesty of the heaps of rock and grass. The largest of which is called "Bishop's Peak." The royalty seems appropriate. The winter season in San Luis Obispo calls out to new life, beckoning it to emerge from the ground perhaps a month or two earlier than tradition dictates. Winter elsewhere means bleak. It means dreary, cloudy, drizzly, wet, frigid; not so in the local realms! Winter promises cool air with the occasional sprinkle with which to water the earth.
Abruptly I turn left. And again. I'm on my way now.
Infinite waters sparkle, like a million eyes turning at just the right time to give me that twinkle, sent from abroad on scrunched ripples. I tune out the constant hum of the engine and hear nothing, as if I were gliding over the surface of the waters.
SNAP! The man in the control tower interrupts my thoughts, and the electronic voice directs other traffic. I begin my descent near Vandenburg AFB. "Lompoc traffic, Cessna 62 Mike, 10 miles North, 3500 descending, Lompoc." It's all coming back: carb heat, throttle, flaps. Before I know it, I am on the ground. Quick! Flaps back, throttle full, carb heat off! Five seconds later, I'm airborne again, and suddenly the engine is tuned out. As I look off my right wing, I see a dreamlike picture:
An emerald hillside, no fence to mark its boundaries, and no trees to disturb its continuity. Perfectly placed upon the hill is a herd of dairy cows grazing on the sweet grass. These bovine are not like most. Instead of the usual earth-tones of color, I see black and white, spotted in stereotypical perfection. They continue to munch on their greens, unaffected by the steel hawk buzzing overhead and unawares that their simplicity brings joy to a more complex being.
Sunsets on flight are like a feast for the eyes. The cones that interpret the colors dance around inside my eyes for the joy of seeing new shades of pink and orange. The sun seems to stretch itself out sideways as if it were reaching with its arms to capture every last bit of sky and sea with its rays. It's almost as if it doesn't want to go. But it leaves out of duty because it knows that we live our lives according to its time... it leaves hesitantly, but rises eagerly. What a strange thing, the ball of burning gases - the source of heat and light that warms my face on a spring day is the same consuming, raging storm that has not ceased for thousands upon thousands of years.
And my steel hawk flies home.

On The Hillside

1/9/06

The following attempt at a poem was composed while reflecting on my surroundings at the horticulture unit:


Wind wafting sweet smell of creek and grass,
Lofty green knoll separates chasm from rocky heights.
Hawk soaring on cool draft shoots upward from unkown:
Breath of some gentle giant.

Silver plates dance on chutes reaching up,
Dynamic sway against stationary hill.
Black and yellow buzz follows currents of gusty trails,
Seeking romance in waves of wind.

What mastermind could conceive the babbling waters
Or rocky heights from which winds whip and turn?
Whose hand formed the heat through the wind
that feeds waving foilage reaching to the skies?

A Tour of Cal Poly Land

1/10/06

So the first day of class was on a Wednesday, due to the Monday travel holiday prior to the beginning of winter quarter. My first impression of the class was very positive. I've always enjoyed my honors classes, but rarely take advantage of the opportunities held within the department. During my freshman year, I had, in my humble opinion, the very best mathematics professor at Cal Poly, whose instruction was kindly offered by the Cal Poly Honors Department. Thank you! This class seemed to be no exception in my mind. The people are genuine and very knowledgeable, and discussion seems fruitful and productive. It's exciting to see where this class may go. I so enjoyed my AP English classes in high school, and have since been deprived of much knowledge in that field. So it's with great anticipation that I welcome the class as a part of my very busy schedule this quarter.

As I was saying, the second day of class was spent hiking, which was just a wonderful experience. You know when you're walking to or from class and you see a group of people walking around the campus? You wonder, "What class is that!? I want to go for hikes in a class!" So I felt a tad bit pompous walking around with notebook in hand and observing the lay of the land.

After departing the library (where our class meets), we began walking past the construction occurring next to the library as Dr. Marx commented on the trees that were still surrounded by concrete and gravel, as if ghosts of what once was a very old parking lot. Continuing past campus market, we came to the creek that runs through the north end of Cal Poly's campus. It's the same creek that runs down the side of Poly Canyon. Dr. Marx explained how so much of the natural habitat that the creek created for plant and animal life had been destroyed in prior years due to the dumping of hazardous waste products into the creek! I knew that the ag department just didn't sit well with me! Just kidding, of course... However I can see how without a knowledge of the delicacy of the ecosystems in the area, how blindly people can react to the need to just dump off some waste! Apparently, with the arrival of the new housing situations for students that will be constructed starting next year, allowed for the condition of a creek retrofit, which I was very glad to hear about.

We continued our hike up the hill, past the baseball fields, until we came to the horse (or equine) unit. The horses there were just beautiful and were the perfect foreground for the surrounding landscape. The horses were organized very effectively - we spent most of our time there standing next to the field where several pregnant mother horses were eating oats and grass. Their bellies were obviously full of something. As I was standing there taking a few snapshots, I was thinking, "I don't think I've ever seen a pregnant horse before!" It was a real treat. A nice Cal Poly student came walking down the hill carrying a bucket of oats. Dr. Marx was quick to stop her and take advantage of her presence by inquiring about the horses and their location. Whether we liked it or not, we learned a lot about the artificial insemination process that the students were learning how to perform using a mare and some unmentionable tools... it's actually quite interesting! While standing there, we read several passages from Vergil's "Georgics," which was very appropriate for our surroundings. Vergil even described the passion of horses in procreating and the like. After spending some more time talking and discussing, we moved on from the horses, not before thanking the student (I forgot her name) for her willingness to share some knowledge with us. Onward to the horticulture unit!

The botanical gardens that we traversed at the horticulture unit were just incredible. The diversity of plant life made me feel like I was traveling in some kind of teleportation module, delivering smells and sights from a variety of locations from across the world. The transition between places was also an amazing trip - so quick!

We spent time just sitting and peacefully observing and penning into our journals the quest of our senses.

Blog Beginnings!

So this is the start of my first blog ever to be created. I'm not exactly sure what to think of it, whether I should like it or not. I mean, it is my private life to a certain extent. But then again, it could just be a snapshot into myself, not necessarily exposing incriminating facts (not there are any!). The next number of blog entries, though dated very close to one another, are in fact writings for my Ecoliterature class beginning on January 9th, 2006. As a result of me beginning this blog a little late, most if not all of my writings will be in the past tense as a form of reflection on the beauty of the day. Above begins the first of my Ecoliterature blog entries, when our class took a day hike up to the equine and horticulture units. It is my desire that this blog be a place of "retreat" and "expression" for me, as well as a place to reflect on the beauty of what I see around me. Enjoy!