Ken Ebert's blog

A mouse, a loophole, and snow on Mars

Fri, 03 Oct 2008 08:32:00 -0700

Bridging the chasm of an assumption I took the liberty of coming home from work for lunch yesterday. Since they began the major infrastructure work just north of my place of employment I have not come home for lunch, assuming that I would not have time to make the trip within the alloted one hour lunch period, due to the truncated traffic flow. I was mistaken.

Equinox

Sun, 21 Sep 2008 19:46:20 -0700

Been away for a while. The journey during the away time took me through realms of past, family, novelty, distance, healing, and wonder. From New Mexico, through Colorado, through Kansas ensconsed in a kind of largeness that boggles freely in the rippling realm of mindfulness. Past the wind farm and the sunflowers.

At sunset tonight Venus floated lovingly above three curious clouds in the southwestern sky. These clouds were evenly spaced, and shaped like giant flat-topped mushrooms

Who Missed the Train?

Mon, 01 Sep 2008 19:15:20 -0700

Everybody loves the sound of a train in the distance
Everybody thinks it’s true
~ Paul Simon

This is a little something I wrote while my mom was dying, and shortly thereafter. The conversations that arose from Chris' blog about Arlo Guthrie reminded me, so here we go. Comments are okay and whatever as well. Smiles. "What does it all mean, Mr. Natural?"

The Path of Least Action

Mon, 25 Aug 2008 09:13:26 -0700

"To everything there is a season, and a time to every purpose under heaven." Ecclesiastes 3:1

The quote was provided by Unencumbered, bringing me a joyful remembrance. I experience it not as a Biblical quote rather as a line from and old Pete Seeger tune, as performed by the Byrds. I hear Roger McGuinn's reedy voice and the chiming sounds of a Richenbacker electric 12-string guitar: an artifact of my youth.

Hummingbird

Wed, 20 Aug 2008 07:34:31 -0700

It is so very easy to explain away the wondrous. Or to miss it altogether in the face of existing knowledge.

My morning errands were not routine: the annual eye exam, and getting a fresh set of tires put on the car in prep for vacation travel. When I returned home I found an unusual guest in the house - a hummingbird!

Coyote on the Threshold

Mon, 04 Aug 2008 07:56:12 -0700

The heat of the day has risen to the most intense of the summer season. Luhgnasadh came on Friday, a feast day to celebrate the first of the bounty of harvest for the year.

My main celebration was to walk through my powerful resistence to calling a friend in Hawaii. She was a coworker in the natural food supermarket where I work; also a watercolorist and also one of the brightest folks I know.

She is dying of colon and lung cancer, at age 54, and is approaching the event of dying with an attitude which is worthy of admiration. The phone call was a blessing to us both. She had just arrived at the beach when she answered the cell phone. Metaphors allowed, but, in this case, not needed.

Landing in the Fog

Sun, 27 Jul 2008 10:55:33 -0700

Waking to a misty morning nearly always effects me as a blessing. Arising from the Celtic lore of Mist, where the worlds of the 'seen' and the 'unseen' intermingle, visibly manifesting as water and air comes together bringing incidental analogy. Somewhere in the night, around 3 AM when endogenous DMT is at it's high cycle of the day, a coyote began a whooping in our driveway, right outside the bedroom window. Sky, the rat terrier, began to bark in challange, but was hushed by a sharp reprimand for the noise. I accept coyote songs in the night as a modality to deepen dreaming, which is greatly enhanced (or facilitated?) by the DMT high levels. So, to awaken to heavy ground fog to the west simply added to the intermingling of this man's intermittant search for dreaming within waking and lucidity within dreaming.

Consciousness for writers

Wed, 09 Jul 2008 09:15:09 -0700

Upon commencement of the Independance Day fireworks display the neighborhood coyotes began to howl vigorously.

We had chairs set up in the back yard so we could sit out and watch the display from five miles away, as the crow flies. Our two Jack Russel terriers sat out with us, but the old dog stayed inside, afraid of Thunder Beings and other huge, loud noises. The two terriers joined in, barking at the firey blossoms and distant booms. Countless canids expressing fervently at lights in the summer sky, I had to smile.

Noting the writers who post here in Shift in Action, I report that I have been feeling gratitude lately at/for the presence of writers and writing in my life.

Guess who came to dinner?

Wed, 18 Jun 2008 08:12:02 -0700

Life, growth, and visionary potential come to mind as I begin this blog post. The occasion is two-fold: a full moon in June followed, two days hence, by the solstice - also known as Midsummer's Night. Also floating like a phosphene before my mind's eye is something a worker at our favorite plant nursery said - she spoke of how even the introduction of one sapling to a parcel of land can alter the micro-climate. This term stays with me, subtly suffusing my perceptions with a winking elfin novelty that comes like an old friend bearing good news. I like it. It reminds me of the dreaming aspects of solid reality and how corporeal confinement isn't such a bad rap when the voices on the wind can be heard, even as unintelligible whispers.

Fledglings in the Wind

Wed, 11 Jun 2008 08:22:18 -0700

When the mockingbird arrived at our house, it was like an old friend coming to visit. That species is not common to this area, but their prevalence in South Florida was a major lightening influence in my life. At first it was one mockingbird - then it the female showed herself, and I realized it was a mated pair. Yesterday morning upon returning from a morning of errands in town I turned into our driveway and found my passage blocked by about 24 quail chicks! One parent was along side the drive and the other scurried to corral all of the tiny chicks, all about the size of a ping pong ball.

When Mockingbirds Dance

Wed, 04 Jun 2008 08:53:23 -0700

"The sleeping hours takes this part
Through traffic, telephones and fear
Put out your problems with the cat
Escape until a bell you hear

Our reasons are the same
But there's no one we can blame
For there's nowhere we need go
And the only truth we know comes so easily"
~ the Moody Blues

My gainful employment is showing, in the way I view things, at times. 'The displaying of wares' precedes what I do, which is: facilitate the transference of wares from merchant to consumer. Smiles come from Jeffrey de Celles' calloused wrench-wringing hands - thanks, man - as I consider software, hardware, wetware, and things of that nature. Yeah, my hands ache after a hard day's work, just as my psych ciruits are usually rattled from diligence - and the emotions? Shhhhh, don't ask!

Thoughts from a Sunlit World

Wed, 21 May 2008 08:19:36 -0700

Effects from the vivid May sunlight - or maybe affects - my internal advisor spoke incessantly yesterday as I continued my landscaping project around our house. Solar insistence melded with neural networks that were tuned, through trauma, specifically toward light reception, giving the metaprogrammer something of a puzzle to work with at the best of times. That little fella (the metaprogrammer) isn't particularly inclined toward keeping these hands on the pick handle: he'd rather be sitting on the porch, in the shade, contemplating the sacred mountain, while nursing a "long, tall, cool, one" (Bruce Hornsby), with sweet ambient music wafting subtly forth from electronics that are equally fitted for hard driving pop/rock.

Blessed Rain and the Oddness of Ravens

Wed, 14 May 2008 17:24:15 -0700

Gray, black, blue, white - it feels so conspiratorial to behold the mountains when they become indecisive.

A cold front blew through and cold misty ambiguousness embraces the Sangre de Cristo range. Yes, there was rain, blessed rain, and there will be more. The grass seed I sowed, yesterday and Sunday, is vindicated with this precipitation. The corn is also planted - a tiny crop of ornamental corn, more for the aesthetic and spiritual value than anything else. I remember Robert Mirabal in concert, saying if you want to live a spiritual life, plant corn.

A Scattering of Doves

Thu, 08 May 2008 19:06:20 -0700

Coming upon sunset, folks; Mountain Daylight Time - olde Chicago tune playing on XM Satellite radio "My Hour in the Shower" - hmmmmm, back in '68 there mighta been a feelin' like a true need for an hour long shower. Forty years? Right now it is right next door, along with copious proclaimin', big and strong, delivered from atop a standing stone. A young quail, we call him Dan.

My sweetheart's in the shower, as we speak, and I am watching the long shadows upon the desert floor.

Hawk, Dove, and New Garden

Thu, 24 Apr 2008 20:24:45 -0700

The original post starts after this introduction. I hafta say I get a kick out of the irony - y'all have been talking about unedited posts, straight from "I", and I tend ta agree with that. But as I finished this post this morning, and went to send it, I found that the internet was kaput regionally. Luckily I have developed, through prudence and from losing too many posts to tech glitches, the habit of composing the post on "notepad". Yes, I do edit. It allows me, also, to save a post if something unforeseen comes up.

I feel that editing allows me the chance to pull the original inspiration into a clearer focus, with the continued influence still advising. The internet was off all day long, as was cell phone service. The irony comes in the subject matter of my delayed post; which begins now..........