I am happy to be alive and happier than a clam (11/29/2022)

Strange title to this post, isn’t it? Today, during my morning walk in the woods with the dogs I was overcome by this feeling of extreme happiness and contentment. I was feeling happier than I could remember ever feeling before; even during my daughter’s wedding a few months ago, although I felt pretty damn happy then, but also full of anticipation, thinking about everything to come the rest of the day.

Come to think of it, this was probably one of the happiest moments in my life. So, what brought this on? I am not on drugs, and as I mentioned in numerous posts of mine, I am not particularly depressed or optimistic. Neither am I a pessimist or optimist. Well, thinking about it during my walk, I concluded I was happy to be alive, and even that thought did not bring me down!

Let me explain.

Bad news abounds, three mass-shootings lately, two of which were here in Virginia and one in Colorado Springs. My wife and I were talking about the shooting in Colorado Springs and how a brave guy put himself at risk and stopped the shooter. We were talking about “What would you do” in such a situation. Armchair quarterbacking is easy, but my first reaction was that I would not hesitate and try to stop the shooter. As I explained to her, I survived at least four episodes where I should have been killed by a gun in Uganda, but somehow escaped it, and once by a natural disaster in Nepal. While I am not invincible, I have been so lucky to have lived through these episodes and survived this long. Therefore, it would be ok if someone gets me, if I can save someone else’s life; I lived a full life already. The thought of that full life did it to me, it made me realize what a great life I have led, and I should be happy.

Now I was walking with my dogs today. In winter we usually we take one of two routes. One takes us behind our home through the woods and then back to the neighborhood to the front of our home. This is about a mile and a quarter long walk. The other one starts out the same way but veers off into a trail that eventually leads you to what I consider to be a piece of relatively old growth forest with huge oaks and yellow popular trees. The stand has an understory of pawpaws and maples. That route is slightly longer and is only in nature.

My plans today were to walk around to the front as we call it. However, the dogs had another idea. They wanted to take a left into the woods to the old growth, my favorite area and surely theirs as well. This time we walked a bit further than usually because it felt so good. The dogs walked calmly, and we were just enjoying ourselves. It was then that this feeling of extreme joy came over me and it has not left me. I was in a high of the woods, the sights and the thoughts.

Researchers talk about how important forest bathing is for your wellbeing. The looks, the sounds (or the lack of them), and the smells, the phytoncides are so good for your health, mind, blood pressure, and overall wellbeing. It seems that one walk in the woods can last weeks. I sometimes have two or three walks in the woods each day. I wish they were cumulative; I would have enough for the rest of my life. Let’s just hope I can capture this happy feeling for a bit longer.

This photograph of the old growth was taken a week ago.  My wife can be seen in the middle of the trail.  You can see the beauty and size of the trees.  

Natural turnover everywhere in these woods.  Mushrooms are active all over the place.  I just love looking exploring and just taking it all in.

A quick after remark.  This past evening ( the evening after publishing this post) we were walking the dogs, and I saw two falling stars in a row.  The both radiated from the direction of Mars.  The first shot right into the constellation of the Gemini, almost directly towards Castor and Pollux.  The special thing is that I am a Gemini and have an affinity to those two stars.  The second meteor shot away less than a minute about 90 degrees away from the first towards to tip of Orion.  Absolutely a great ending on an already great day.

Thankful that nature is part of us (11/23/2022)

Of late, I have become increasingly introspective. Whether that a sign of the changing seasons and the approaching solstice, Christmas, and New Year, or just a sign of aging and the approaching consideration of retiring, I really don’t know and couldn’t care less. As my regular readers know, when I become more introspective, I start asking the perpetual question: Why the hell, am I writing this blog? I have seen so many blogs or bloggers who quit after so many years. Is it worth those measly 200+ readers every month? Last month I had 224 hits and this month I am already up to 374 hits; the average this year is 205). As you can see, I am no influencer, nor did I ever intent to be one. I have nothing to sell or to give away right now. If you want me to sponsor or promote you or your product, we can talk I would not mind. I have bought and used products from various bonsai suppliers and maybe one day I’ll write a review about what I like and what I did not.

Early on this blog was meant to document my travels through Virginia as an instructor. I had learned to love this state and discovered all it’s beauty. Having studied photography in the past and giving it up as a serious hobby or even as a possible profession, I felt this was a way of rekindling it. Soon the captions with the photographs started taking over and I felt I had so much more to say that could accompany those photographs; the story behind the photographs, the items that I could not capture, things on my mind. If you are a regular reader, you have seen me mention that before. This blog became a diary of sorts, a reflection of my thinking at times, a travel log, my political rant, and as I mentioned in my last post my way of trying to educate, maybe one or two readers so now and then, or at least help them think critically.

But I do not write every waking moment of my life. So, what do I do in my spare time, when it is either dark outside, when I don’t work, don’t write these damn posts, walk my dogs, work on my bonsai trees, cook, or bake bread? Notice I left out any water-based activities like kayaking and sailing as well as biking! Somehow, I need to get back into them, but I have not sailed or kayaked for a long time. Ever since I broke my wrist, I have shied away from biking, although my wrist is completely healed. Then to hear folks near us were killed while riding bikes and broke all kinds of bones. That does not help us getting back on the bikes. But I increased my time dedicated to the environment, nature, and my bonsai.

The real answer is, I watch a lot of YouTube videos, read blogs, and listen to podcasts. My wife and I keep telling each other that we need a life, and we should go see a movie or watch a TV show, so we can talk “intelligently” with friends and colleagues about current cultural things.

What I am trying to convey here is my love for the world. The YouTubes and podcasts mostly deal with nature, science, and human interaction. Few of the latest ones I took in was the YouTube video by Mirai on Ryan’s creation of the different U.S. forests. I also listened to his interview with folks who climb the big trees in California for research as part of the forest creation; this was on his Asymmetry podcast. Both were great. While I already know this, I appreciate more and more the fact that I am part of nature and that I can not function without it. I need it to recharge; when I walk in the woods, I need to touch a tree trunk with my bare hands, feel it, be one with it, be one with nature.

Truthfully, we are part of nature, and that is very important to remember. The natural world does not care who we are, what we look like, what we wear or even what are political leaning is. I keep reminding myself of that and the need to honor all species (although maybe not the roaches and mosquitoes that invade our home at times). But what I am trying to say is that with my forest bathing, with my walks in nature, with my bonsai and trying to recreate those old trees, and just being in the moment, I am aware that I am part of a whole, a minute part of this earth. That is what I have been realizing more and more these past few months.

I was reading an on-line article which discusses the fact that without life in general, this earth would not exist. There would not be limestone, or even soil, both of which are formed by life. Organic matter would not exist, carbon without life? You get the message? The earth would look like Mars. Damn, an interesting concept, isn’t it? The earth and the evolution on it formed life (read us), and life is part of the formation or evolution of the earth. We all affect each other. Now in the Anthropocene the impact of humans seems to be accelerated and not in a positive way (I know, here I go again, and I’ll stop).

But all you, my 200+ readers of my posts sit back, take a deep breath, and think about it. You are part of nature and nature is part of you! With everything you are doing you are impacting the Earth and you can choose whether that is mostly positive or negative. The Earth will give you the same treatment in return since it is part of you. The problem is that it is also part of your children, grand-children, and generations to come. They bare the consequences of our actions or inaction. Introspective anyone?

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

I had to steal this picture from the Rodin museum in Paris.  I visited it in 1976 and need to do it again soon.  But this is probably how I currently feel the most, contemplative.

Half Full or Half Empty (11/18/2022)

Is the glass half full or half empty, that is something I sometimes ask myself. Regular readers of my blog probably know that I can be either a pessimist or an optimist or maybe both, at times. A friend of mine who read some of my posts called them scarry (I think). Now, he is a foreigner, as I am, so maybe he meant ominous. Honestly, I don’t intent my posts to be negative, as such. A lot of them are biographical, telling you readers about my past or my current life. Some of my posts tell you about my thinking and quite a few about my political and environmental leanings. They are not intended to upset you (maybe except for one or two); however, the teacher in me wants to challenge you, my readers to critical thinking at times. Yes, I would not mind persuade you to change your minds, my way.

As I mentioned just now, I encourage critical thinking, not necessarily my thinking. However, what has been upsetting me most, is folks that just accept everything that is being handed to them on a platter, or told to them without questioning it, investigating it, and just taking it as the new truth. This is what I started seeing with a lot during the past 5 years of the conservative MAGA folks. While a lot of us progressives will take everything that folks tell us with a grain of salt, even if it is from the mainstream media, our political leaders, or even our churches, it seems that the MAGA folks close themselves off from all alternative thinking. The latest example is the Arizona republican candidate for Governor Mrs. Kari Lake, who told the press she would only accept the election when they were in her favor.

So, why am on this soap box today? My recent posts have been so non-political, so non-controversial. Why now. The elections are over anyway. The big red wave did not happen. It seems that most election deniers were denied elected offices by the public. Voters voted with their brains. The glass was half full after all. My wife saw the glass as half empty going into November, I predicted it would not be that bad. Did I win? Who cares? Often, I needed to remind my wife that this was not the end of the world we are living in, but we need to fight, our way. That it would all come out OK and it did! The elections are behind us. Or are they?

One of the principles from my Unitarian Church tells me, I am free to independently search for my own truth and meaning. This applies to religion, society, and life in general, as long as it does not hurt anyone else. To me this applies to everything in my life. I am seeing that the American electorate did the same thing, they did not sheepishly follow the directions of the red-haired biggest looser who seems to want to try to lose again.

I agree, this year started out poorly (or the glass emptied) with the Supreme Court decision on abortion. We were all angry. In my wife’s eyes this was the end of the world. I agreed it was terrible, I demonstrated with her and agreed we needed to do something about it and work to defeat the conservatives. She is a woman, who was much more affected by that decision than I as a guy; I understand that. I wrote a couple of posts about it, we sent money to political candidates, and the Planned Parenthood. We made an informed decision to do these things without being encouraged or almost forced to do so. We did not roll over because our politicians or religious leaders told us to do so. I am neither an optimist, nor a pessimist. Am I a realist? I don’t even know that. In the past I was a pessimist for sure, most of my life. Old age is mellowing me. Maybe I’ve become a fatalist, but then I do believe we can change our fate, instead of just sitting back an taking it as it comes. That is what I try to do here and in life in general, and in my job; all in the hope that I create a few extra critical thinkers before I leave this earth. I try to do that overtly in my classes, in my sermons, in my interactions with people and here in my blog posts. Because that is what we need to do to make a better world, and this is the only way I think I can make a contribution to that.

A mushroom?  How does this fit in with what I wrote in this post.  A mushroom is the fruiting body of thousands of mold threads that are growing underground and that we cannot see, When the time is just right (the right temperature and humidity), all the hyphae get together and decide to for a mushroom to have "mold sex."  They do very well on their own without sexual breeding, but this mixes the chromosomes which is good for future evolution etc.  To me it shows the importance of the unseen, the undercurrent, being able to subtlety work on blogs like this hoping to come to fruition and help change the world a little bit.

Bonsai Philosophy (11/7/2022)

During the recent meeting of the bonsai club that I am a member of, I asked one of the members for critique on one of my trees. It is a willow oak that I dug up out of my back yard and have had in a pot for about four or five years now and it is doing really great. The trunk of the tree is still fairly thin and here in lies the rub.

The member that I asked the critique or help from is advanced; I consider my skills somewhere in the middle, having gained a lot of YouTube knowledge. He is part of a bonsai club in northern Virginia and gives workshops up there. He is very good. In other words, I appreciate his feedback. His first remark was that based on the circumference of the trunk, “the tree should be approximately 4 inches tall to be in proportion.” My tree right now is two feet tall. While I agreed with him, if I want a finished tree; however, this tree is in development and hopefully by letting it grow tall, I can get some girth on the trunk. Cutting the tree that low is scarry to me. I do not see any leaf scars down there and I am not sure if it would back-bud or die when cut that low. I am not sure if I am prepared to risk it.

The next discussion point was movement in the trunk. My tree has a double trunk that are both about as straight as arrows. The discussion was about using very heavy copper wire to put some movement in the trunk. The following discussion ensued. A lot of bonsai artists including my advisor likes to put in exaggerated movement into trees to represent the age of the tree, ravaged by time and the weather. They also reflect the artist’s ability to work with the plants. I am not sure if I am a huge fan of all these trees with strange twists and turns that all these bonsai “artists” put in their trees. One of the YouTube channels I watch is the Bonsai Zone by Nigel Saunders. Nigel used to be a model builder, and his philosophy is (as I understand it) to create trees that are a copy of what they look like in nature. Well, I hardly see a contorted twisted willow oak in nature. My mentor for the day pulled up some pictures of mature willow oaks on his phone and had to agree. Trunks are mostly straight, and the canopies are brought.

Personally, I have a few trees that I am twisting and turning, but most of mine are clip and grow, like Nigel. Mine are mostly small. While I would love some larger specimen, being almost 70, my time to grow and lift large trees may be limited. Being a naturalist, a biologist, I like to recreate nature and walking in the woods, the day after the meeting I noticed that 90% of the trees had arrow straight trunks. Some of the understory trees were twisted: maples, ironwood, pawpaw, hornbeam, etc. They were looking for light, those sun flecks.

Naturally, making a forest like bonsai with multiple trees, we need to start thinking about making trees with relatively straight trunks. That is what we see in nature, the competition for light. But then, are there twin trunk oaks? I actually have a triple trunk oak in my front yard, and one of the tallest oaks on my favorite trails behind my home is a twin-trunked red oak. I did learn something. I am not yet going to cut off the leader (which I had planned to do) in the hope to develop a thicker trunk. Moreover, I am going to plant it on a rock!

All together it was a win-win meeting for me. I really encourage everyone to join a bonsai club, if you grow then and have not joined one yet. 

The willow oak of today's discussion.  As you can see the trunks are too thin and the side branches are not well developed.  My fear is letting the top grow too much might kill the side branches.  I put the rock there just now as a trial.  It is too big, but that is what we were thinking about with root over rock. 

This is the only strangely shaped oak that I know in the woods behind our home.  My wife calls it the howling dog tree.  It is in one of the ephemeral ponds and I assume a regrowth from a stump that broke off.

The twin-trunked red oak in the woods behind our home.  This tree is at least 300 feet tall, and the trunk is huge; you would need at least four persons to span around one of the trunks.