Tiny Mandala Series: #34 to #37 / "Don't let despair win"

*

"Don't let despair win"

Grieving a world of wars without end, always listening for rumors of peace / Robin Wall Kimmerer and Chris La Tray / Annular eclipse 2023 / Tiny Mandala #30 / Owls

Robin Wall Kimmerer and Chris La Tray

Braiding Sweetgrass: What does the earth ask of us? 

This talk will be accessible until October 17.  

Chris La Tray is the recently named Poet Laureate of Montana.  I've been reading his blog for several years now and recommend it.  I've bought two of his books of poetry and am looking forward to reading his book which will be published in 2024, Becoming Little Shell.

"... He maintains an online journal called "An Irritable Métis," where he grapples with matters of cultural identity, the natural world, and the path Montana is taking ..."

(quote from Native News Online)

*

Annular eclipse 2023

From my porch, I took a photo of the sun just before the max view,

 

and was startled to see what appeared to be a reverse image of the eclipse on the right side of the photo.  Take a look.  A mystery!

*

*

*

In a world of wars without end, I grieve and continue to listen for rumors of peace.

"... If all else fails, there's always the sky."

Notice

My friend who is still in the hospital loves to look out the window and notice the changes in the sky.  An old friend of mine who is currently staying at Pajaro Dunes on Monterey Bay took the above photo last evening.  Turns out that both of them grew up within a few miles of each other on the San Francisco Peninsula in California and couldn't help but love the ocean.

Above us only sky.

*

My friend isn't religious but has a little card near her bed that reads "Faith."

"... these are trying times that we're living in / Have a little faith, my friend ..."

-- Mavis Staples

Sending love to blog friends near and far.  

Am is all over the place today and it's a good thing that everything is connected

*

Although I don't identify as religious, atheist or Buddhist or anything else, I listen to people who do identify. I found this to be helpful. 

*

*

Complex Diagrams from The Book of Changes / I Ching / Yijing

If I had any money to support this man's project, I would.  Scroll down to see his I-Ching imagery, the result of his 25 years of solitary work on this project.

*

*

When we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the Universe.

(John Muir)

"This is a relay, not a marathon" (Rabbi Danya Ruttenberg)

Cultivating hope

"Our struggle is not the struggle of a day, a week, a month, or a year, it is the struggle of a lifetime." (Representative John Lewis)