Twelth Ocean, Atlas, 62nd Day of Hagwinter, 524 M.E.

 

Thought I'd post another one of those Roger Dean-like seascapes for Twelth Ocean, like I did for the previous 11 ocean days this year, didn't you? I thought so, too, but apparently the Winter Hag thought differently so here we go.

All things according to their season, and today I deliberately didn't take my alternate-day walk. First time since April that I missed with no intention of making up the miles. I haven't quit but there's a time for walks and there's a time for couch surfing and watching college football games, and this is the latter. I'll walk again when they aren't airing games.

For those of you keeping score at home, I'm 3-of-5 so far this year with by football picks, tied with two others for second place in the family bowl pool. At halftime, my pick (Tulane) is trailing but covering the spread so far in the Gasparilla Bowl (update: they got blown out in the second half and we took a loss).    

Day of the White Glare, Helios, 61st of Hagwinter, 524 M.E.

 

Apologies in advance if I seem a little preoccupied for the next few weeks, but I'm live-streaming coverage of the college football bowls and playoffs over at The New England Bulldog. 

The Prince is Aloft, Electra, 60th Day of Hagwinter, 524 M.E.

 

Another ecstatic walk today, but of a very different nature from Monday's endorphin-drenched hike. For one thing, I got a late start today so I walked my local Beltline trail instead of the Cochran Shoals trail near the Chattahoochee River. For another, part of the pleasure of last Monday's walk was listening as I went along to the album Taking Turns by ECM artist Jacob Bro over a pair of headphones. I wore the headphones again today, but listened to music of a completely different nature, the 58-minute live set, Wood Blues, by the forward-thinking jazz ensemble [ahmed].

[ahmed] is named for NYC bassist, oudist, composer, educator and philosopher Ahmed Abdul-Malik, who fused aspects of American, Arabic and East African thought, ethics, meanings and beliefs in open and experimental ways.

Wood Blues opens sounding like a bebop blues-jazz hybrid, with boogie-woogie piano over a walking bass line. The piano sounds increasingly like something Thelonious Monk might have played as it progresses, and after a while the alto sax of Seymour Wright joins in, playing repeated simple, sometimes one-note sequences. The repetition builds in intensity and suspense (how long will this continue, and what will come next?), and amazingly they keep going and going, building up into almost unbearable levels of intensity. At times, the whole structure of repeated riffs finally collapses in on itself into free-jazz chaos, but the band quickly finds a new pattern in that chaos and starts repeating that riff. Over and over. The excitement built up in this live recording is evident by the audience's audible reactions - the crowd, it seems, was going wild, cheering and hooting and hollering.

I probably covered at least three miles listening to Wood Blues today, and totaled 7.4 on the walk.  

[ahmed] will be playing at next year's Big Ears festival, and I can't wait to experience them live. Here's a track from a recent album, although not the one I was listening to today.   

The Fire Is a Mirror, Deneb, 59th Day of Hagwinter, 524 M.E.

 

A 15-year-old girl entered a Christian school in Wisconsin yesterday and killed a teacher and a fellow student and left six other people injured before killing herself

Guns don't protect people, they kill people. If you have a gun in your home, I beg you to get rid of it now.

Rose Over the Cities, Castor, 58th Day of Hagwinter, 524 M.E.

 

Ever since the cold weather arrived earlier this month, I've been taking my alternate-day walks along the nearby Beltline trail. Not only was I trying to avoid the cold winds that blow down the Chattahoochee River on my other trail, but the cool weather kept me indoors longer and the late starts precluded the luxury of driving to the riverside trailhead.

Today was a little warmer though (high in the low 60s), so I headed to the 'Hootch and I'm glad that I did. It was overcast when I arrived, but after a mile or two the clouds parted and blue skies came through. But the big difference since the last time I hiked the trail was that all the leaves had fallen from the trees. This opened up the vistas and allowed be to see further, not only around me but also the trail ahead. I wouldn't say the walks felt claustrophobic before the leaves fell, but it did feel much more open and spacious today. I was aware of more of the trail than just the few yards ahead of me.

I guess the endorphins must have kicked in, because the walk felt more joyful, exciting, and interesting than it had for a long time. The miles seemed to pass by quicker, the hills felt easy, and there was more than a little skip to my step. I totaled 7.3 miles and while I was glad to get back to my car at the trailhead, I felt like I could have taken the walk all over again.      

Humming of the Distances of the Planet, Betelgeuse, 57th Day of Hagwinter, 524 M.E.

Zakir Hussain, the legendary tabla virtuoso who defied genres, died today at age 73. Impermanence is swift.

Zakir played on a great many albums, from George Harrison's Living in the Material World (1973) and jazz musician John Handy's Hard Work (1976) to the soundtracks of Apocalypse Now and Bernardo Bertolucci's Little Buddha.   He appeared on Mickey Hart's Planet Drum and was a founding member of Bill Laswell's world-music supergroup Tabla Beat Science and John McLaughlin's Shakti. He was widely considered one of the greatest tabla players of all time.

He was scheduled to play at next year's Big Ears music festival with jazz saxophonist Charles Lloyd and his own Masters of Percussion ensemble. I once noted that so many musicians seemed to die soon after performing at Big Ears - a statistical side effect of a festival featuring so many legendary but elderly musicians - but this is the first time I'm aware of a performer passing on before their scheduled appearance.

Rest in peace, good sir. 

Whistling Smiling Hand of the Hangman, Atlas, 56th Day of Hagwinter, 524 M.E.

 

My cumulative walking distance, an imaginary circle with r = how many miles I've walked this year, reached all the way from Atlanta to Canada nearly three months ago, but only just now has reached Mexican soil. Not the embattled U.S.-Mexico border to be sure, but the northernmost Yucatan peninsula. It figures that my old geological ass would get to Chicxulub before Armageddon.

The radius of that circle now takes in portions of the United States, Canada, Mexico, Cuba, and the Bahamas. Sometime after it reaches the easternmost tip of the U.S.-Mexico border, it will probably take in the Cayman Islands, a British overseas territory, and then Belize, Turks and Caicos, and Bermuda, in that order. And then Jamaica, Guatemala, and Haiti next. 

My miles extended to the Atlantic six months ago, and will reach the Pacific coast of southwest Mexico sometimes after they reach Bermuda (and the southernmost tip of Hudson's Bay in the opposite direction) but before they get to Puerto Rico. I doubt it will be this calendar year, though. 

    

Day of the Magic Child, Helios, 55th Day of Hagwinter, 524 M.E.

"Amazon donates $1M to Trump’s inaugural fund as tech cozies up to president-elect," The Guardian's headline exclaims. "OpenAI’s Sam Altman also announced a $1M personal donation to Trump on the same day, joining Meta," they continue.

No, "tech" isn't cozying up to Trump, as The Guardian likes to describes it. Rich, white men are cozying up to Trump. Right now, the riches are being made in tech, but in the past it was petroleum, steel, or automobiles. "Steel" wasn't cozying up to Grover Cleveland, "oil" wasn't contributing to Roosevelt. It was rich, white men and was always rich, white men. Different revenue sources, same donors. It doesn't change.

Stop asking why "tech" is so infatuated and supportive of Trump. When you ask the question right, why are rich, white men donating to Trump, the answer is pretty obvious. 

Day of the Inner Lid, Electra, 54th of Hagwinter, 524 M.E.

It was on this day one year ago that my pet cat Izzy passed away in his sleep. One year without the lovable, goofy furball. 

Saturday will mark the three-month anniversary of the passing of my brother, David. It was three months ago today that I learned of his terminal illness. 

Impermanence is swift. Time passes swiftly and our dew-like life is gone in a flash. May I respectfully remind you, life-and-death is the great matter. 

Smoke of the Shore, Deneb, 53rd Day of Hagwinter, 524 M.E.

 

For months, I took my alternating day walks in the sweltering heat and humidity of the Georgia summer. As the season progressed and the temperatures climbed, I adapted day by day, degree by degree, to the summer heat.

Now it's the cold. I missed my walk yesterday because it rained all day, but I made up for it today. The rainfall had stopped but the temperature was in the low 40s and the wind chill made it feel like the 20s. I wore a hat and two layers of fleece to ward off the cold, but could still feel it blow through my clothes when the wind gusted. 

If I'm going to keep my routine going, and I intend to, I'm going to have to adjust to the chilly temperatures of January and February just like I did for the heat of July and August. Instead of despising the cold, I need to consider it an adventure, something I need to conquer in order to meet my goal. The obstacle is the way.    

Day of the Mind Blizzard, Castor, 52nd of Hagwinter, 524 M.E.

 

"I promise I will stop drinking if you make me Secretary of Defense," has got to be the most alcoholic thing a candidate can possible say.

The Glistening Drivers, Betelgeuse, 51st Day of Hagwinter, 524 M.E.

 

Dealing with my emotions and feelings in this transition period between Presidents really highlights the advantages Contemplative Stoicism has over Zen Buddhism.

In a nutshell, Stoicism teaches us to ask ourselves if there's anything we can do to change the situation. If the answer's "yes," then do what needs to be done. But seeing as how we can't change the electoral results, nor can we change Donald Trump, if the answer's "no," Stoicism then asks if we can accept the burden and bear the pain, and advises us that we may be tougher than we think. Life is hard, but we can also grow and learn from the hardships. The obstacle is the way.

Buddhism is not all that different. Remember my I Ching reading (which is Taoist not Buddhist, but humor me) said that I may be able to survive the coming term, but then again, I might not. The Buddha's First Noble Truth is the existing of suffering. He would not have been surprised that hard times are coming, and taught that life is marked by sickness, old age, and death.

Neither practice offers a false hope that things will be all sunshine and rosewater. But Stoicism, and in particular Contemplative Stoicism, helps toughen us better for the hard times than does Buddhism, or at least that's how it feels to me.

I've listened to several Zen podcasts and online dharma talks about coping with the results of the election. Most of them offered some commiseration on the suffering, some teachers sounding very empathic and understanding about the frustration and anger their students are feeling, but few offered specific advice on what to actually do about it. I was reminded that the Buddha lived in India in the Fifth Century B.C. under a strict caste system, and never complained about it nor called for its overthrow. He didn't endorse it, but we shouldn't forget that he was of the Warrior caste, and if he had been born in a lower caste, would probably never have had the privilege of being a spiritual leader. On the other hand, Stephen Batchelor claims that the Buddha's actual goal was to build and create an alternate society, that the sangha was his true aim, not the dharma.

I'm not bashing on Buddhism. Contemplative Stoicism, in my formulation, is Stoic philosophy informed by and imbued with Zen Buddhism. Two columns supporting the platform, and both strengthen the other. But when the election results go the way they did in 2024, I tend to lean on the Stoic column for support. When they do the way they did for Obama in 2008 and 2012, I rely on the Zen column to keep me grounded.