On the Potency of Music
I love music. I spend a lot of time learning about its design and production. Despite my hearing loss, I try to play it. A question that has followed my […]
Projects
A New Enlightenment?
There’s been a hiatus in my postings. I had a mastectomy and have been slow to get my energy, and perhaps more importantly, my focus back after a summer of […]
Late Summer 2021
The oak leaves have their mature deep green, leathery appearance. The fog has a gray cast, rather than the golden hue it somehow gathers in the spring and early summer. […]
When it breaks down
The repercussions of overdoing it this Spring have trickled down well into Summer. This Spring, the busiest time of year for my gardening business, I also bushwhacked and established a […]
Eastern Phoebes and a Black Cat
I have a pair of Eastern Phoebes nesting in the eave of the shed. I will take this as a sign that parts of the compound are being integrated fully […]
Improvements to the grounds
Gardening! It’s been a hectic couple weeks with soil and earth deliveries, the fencing contractors, and moving garden to the new site. The current location of the garden is the […]
The excitement never ends
March 22, a gorgeous Spring day. Cloudless clear skies, rapidly rising temps, and some outdoor work to do, but not much to worry about, so I thought. The much anticipated […]
A tentative step out of the plague.
My Pfizer doses have been complete for 3 weeks now. I’m full ripe of antibodies. I decided that it was time to venture out of the county and learn a […]
Life in a Green Commune
Photo credit: Wikimedia Volvox are gorgeous organisms. They live somewhere between the individual, a group, and are a beautiful manifestation of physically efficient geometry. They are often abundant in deep, […]
Technology and Monasticism
… is the title of an unwritten dissertation. In my monastic experience, I’ve taken a tack that welcomes some tech and shuns others. I don’t think there’s a single approach […]
How big is a soul?
I’ve always had an interest in consciousness, self awareness, and how the brain seems to have a sense of where the self ends and where the rest of the universe […]
Joy in Painting
When young, I gravitated to clay in school and the muddy hole that I had dug in the back yard for fun. At university, I studied portrait sculpture and soil […]
Keeping the Routine in Check
Good morning! Today I might just be able to focus on and appreciate my solitude. I’m finding that maintaining my weekly routine is frequently disrupted, and though I can maintain […]
Medical failures and triumphs
Here I go. My long suffering from a pervasive autoimmune disease that’s left me with an arthritic spine from C5 to L5, torn up my gut for 50 years, bouts […]
Snow Day Prep, and Latin with the Starlings
There was much to do this past Fall. I was getting the main structure ready for occupancy inspection and had to shore up the 250′ fence, in addition to the […]
Mons Domus Deep Space Observatory is OPEN
An important part of my monasticism is the regular observation and appreciation of nature. I’ve invested in a microscope and a telescope to help open my eyes a little wider […]
The Mitochondria Problem
It’s an odd project- developing an iconographic language for science. Science already has its languages; maths, taxonomies, chemistry, geometries, and so on. The issue is that these languages have proven […]
Reused pane of glass
My business had a couple large boarded-up windows. We finally had the resources and time to have them opened up and replaced. In one of the openings were the remnants […]
Sum, es, est; Sumus, estis, sunt.
Yup. Started some intro to Latin texts. We’ll see how far I get. At this point, based on on my readings, most Romans were poets, farmers and sailors, very much […]
Small
Nothing that I could write is of an order of magnitude large enough to be visible in the shadows of the grand and foul machinations of our government. Perhaps that […]
The making of a good habit.
Things at my business are a bit crazy. The business grows, and it’s hard to keep up sometimes. Usually January is dead (It’s a gardening business), but we’re in a […]
Resolutions 2021
New Years has always been a favorite time. It’s kind of like a birthday- a fresh start, a new cycle, but one where I’m willing to spoil the opportunity for […]
Thomas Merton and some Crackers.
Unearthing kitchen goods from stored boxes, I found a 4-year old packet. It contained less than a teaspoon of gluten-free sourdough starter. It had been through an outrageous amount of […]
Winter
To celebrate the Solstice, managed a taste of Chartreuse, a liqueur made in an ancient French Monastery. Its flavor is derived from some 100+ herbs, and if anything can taste […]
New Eyes for the World
My eyes have been changing for about 5 years. I shift reader prescriptions every six months or so. The process of getting old eyes has made me more aware of […]
This is for the Birds
I need a lot of windows. I knew this after living in a couple homes that didn’t have enough. When I designed my house, I thought about monastic life, and […]