Solstice

What will you do to celebrate the longest day of the year? I have some ideas.

A common language

I Heard rhythm, music and singing tonight. Rhythm from a shallow round drum that brought the full moon into the room, tones plucked from the picking and fingering hands of the rubab, and vocals that undulated and ululated around words that spoke of emotions filtered through the high brain. It is music from the beginning of time, when folk songs and poetry expressed the human need for love. The words were in a foreign language but the effect and intent were understood regardless.

Ustad Farida Mawash, Homayoun Sakhi, and the Sakhi Ensemble presented an incredible concert of Afghan music in Berkeley that opened my ears and heart.

Central Total Lunar Eclipse

Today a fairly rare central total lunar eclipse occurred, where the center point of Earth's shadow passed across the Moon.  The red moon was not visible from my location, North America, but was visible in South America, Europe, Africa, Asia, Australia.  Although not visible from where I am, it was experienced.  The last time a lunar eclipse was closer to the center of the earth's shadow was on July 16, 2000. The next central total lunar eclipse will occur on July 27, 2018.

The next total (not central) lunar eclipse will occur December 10, 2011, and will be visible from North America, weather permitting.

R n R

It's June and unseasonably cool. It rained last week and again this weekend. The star jasmine which usually blooms in April is just beginning to bud. The lavender which typically scents the air in May is starting to show color in its buds. Spring's arrival is slow and prolonged.

Rhubarb is available. I've never prepared it before, but I knew exactly what I wanted from it, thanks to C.Ferber's "Mes Confitures".
This recipe takes less effort than many others in the book: just macerate overnight, then cook it in the morning. Need to remember to have fewer distractions next time, though.  I knocked a jar over towards me while filling it, and I immediately leaned forward in a lame attempt to salvage the spill, yet much of the hot mass glopped onto the floor. Gah.

Rhubarb and Rosemary Preserves, 5C instead of 6C

I paused to think about priorities. Then I finished filling the jars and I put them in the water bath before I started to clean the drippy mess on me and the floor.

The flavor combination is incredible.

Fire and water

A fire just north of Camp Roberts yesterday.

The effect of water on a stair.

Toecaps and whitecaps

Feynman by the sea

At the west coast.

from Bali to Iberia

I saw a fan - a butterfly, a glimmer - flutter around a poised dancer whose arms slowly moved to define sacred space around her body and whose legs moved within a long train of a dress to maneuver its placement in her path. The butterfly alit on her hand, then slowly fluttered near the head of an approaching dancer who held out her hand, received the butterfly, snapped it shut, then snapped it open again with a different life.  It fluttered with a stronger pulse as the dancer's arms crisply announced their presence and her legs directed and flipped the dark heavy train of her dress so that it swirled and carved her path.

A View

It's raining tonight.  Unusual for this time of year.  The Tour de California bike race starts in the Sierras today or tomorrow and snow is forecast.  Downhill at 50mph on "fat" one-inch racing tires?  Nein danke.

I tended the small garden plot, performed the annual irrigation check (giving rise to tonight's rain, no doubt), made a few repairs, and planted a few tomatoes, alyssums, and marigolds.  A month ago I pulled the offspring of the summer wild ones, and I haven't seen too many since, which was a relief until I wondered if there was another less desireable reason why the ground is more barren than usual.  It was confirmed that the land had been sprayed with herbicide.  My heart sank with dismay.  Time to extract the skeletal carcasses, heal the land with compost, replant, and post "no poison" signs.  Bah.

Been awhile since I've traveled.  So I go vicariously, over oceans through the sky.  14g of merino were spun on the Kundert perpetual motion spindle before and after gardening.  7g of cobalt-blue merino were spun woolen and andean-plied.  Similarly, 7g total of the cobalt-blue and turquoise (equal amounts of each color) were produced.  These are calm oceans and clear skies viewed on a sunny day.

Mapping through Immersion

I read everything, without selection..I borrowed from the public library...I read very fast, uncritically, and without retention, seeking only to escape from my own life through the imaginative plunge into another. Safe in my room...I disappeared into inner space. The real world dissolved and I was free to drift in fantasy, living a thousand lives, each one more powerful, more accessible, and more real than my own.

-- Frank Conroy