Signature of Light, 17th Day of Midsommar, 526 M.E. (Aldebaran): I've previously spoken here about Saint Willis of Carrier, the patron saint of the American South - the man who invented air conditioning, without which life here in Georgia would be, if not impossible, at least very uncomfortable.  

We're most aware of Saint Willis when his invention is absent, as in yesterday afternoon when I realized my AC was just blowing warm air, and the temperature was slowly rising in the house. I called the service company and they scheduled a technician to come fix it today, which he did.

This happens every year. Since 2021, I've had a maintenance contract on my HVAC, and every year they come here, usually in March or April, for annual maintenance. No charge - it's a part of the annual service fee. But every year, after their annual maintenance and the weather begins to warm up, I have to call them and make a second appointment because the air won't start, and then after that it works fine for the rest of the summer. 

This happens every year. Every year. There's no cost for the second visit either, so it doesn't seem to be some sort of scam.

In any event, after a warm but not too uncomfortable 24 hours, I can once again feel the spirit of Saint Willis in my house.

It's Aldebaran, a sitting day, and a year ago, almost to the date, I missed my alternating-day sit waiting for the technician for the second maintenance appointment of 2025. I made sure that didn't happen again this year and after I settled down following the tech's departure, I did my sitting. I noticed the incense burned faster in the moving air from the overhead AC vent. Instead of a stately column of smoke trailing straight up from the stick, and smoke eddied and swirled in the chaotic air currents, and a stick that normally lasts well over an hour had already burned out by 60 minutes.

I'm still working on my cross-legged posture. I was able to sit through the first half hour cross-legged, but I started fidgeting during the second half hour. The trouble with fidgeting is that once you adjust the body to alleviate some ache or pain, you've told your mind that you can control the physical sensations and then the adjustments don't stop. Moving this leg out a little relieves the tightness in the calf, but now the left heel is digging into the right shin. Fix that and then the lower back starts calling for some attention. Then the neck. Et cet., et cet. Halfway through the second half hour, I quit with the criss-cross bullshit and went back to seiza.

It was about the same for the third and final half hour, although I think I made it well past halfway and certainly longer than the second period before I abandoned cross-legged sitting and returned again to the kneeling posture.

The body is like clay - stiff clay to be sure, but with time and patience I believe it can be molded and stretched as desired, even for old men. But believing is one thing and seeing another, and I'll believe it when I see it as I keep working toward my ideal posture.

 

Spectre of the Lapse, 16th Day of Midsommar, 526 M.E. (Helios): Everything's impermanent and nothing lasts forever, even - maybe especially - the epic run of gorgeous weather we've been having here in Georgia. Today was notably hotter (upper 80s) and more humid, with occasional light rain. I'm under a severe thunderstorm warning right now, but I think it will pass without major incident, other than a little rain and the rumble of distant thunder.

The long-term forecast shows rain and thunderstorms for eight of the next ten days, and overcast, cloudy (and probably humid) conditions for the other two days. Might do something for the drought, however.

It's Helios, a walking day, and I got a Madisonian 4.4 miles in before the sound of approaching thunder made me call it a day. The heat and humidity made it a bit uncomfortable to be out walking, but what I would give for a day like today when the Dog Days come rolling in later this year.

I read that after Lyndon Johnson signed the Voting Rights Act in 1965, a Democratic Presidential candidate has never won a majority of the White vote. I thought that had to be bullshit - surely we're not that racist, are we? - but I looked it up and it's true. The closest a Democrat came was Jimmy Carter in 1976 (48%). Bill Clinton got only 39% of the white vote in 1992 but improved to 44% in '96. In 2008, Obama also got 44% of the White vote but fell to only 39% in 2012. Biden got only 41% in 2020.

I'm still not sure there's a direct and singular causal correlation between the Voting Rights Act and the electoral demographics. I mean, ever since man landed on the moon, a Democrat hasn't won the majority of White vote, right? Ever since The Beatles disbanded, a Democrat hasn't won the White vote. Ever since women were allowed to apply for a credit card without a male co-signer. Et cet. But the data doesn't put White Americans in a very flattering light, does it?    

If it's any consolation, Kamala Harris got a higher percentage of the White vote (42%) than Hilary Clinton (37%). Must have been the emails.

 

Dream in the Rock, 15th Day of Midsommar, 526 M.E. (Electra): I have a confession to make - ever since August 2024, when I began in earnest my current practice of alternating walking and sitting days, I wasn't literally sitting every other day. I was instead using what's called the seiza posture, a form of kneeling, with the zafu (meditation cushion) under my butt for support. I have a seiza bench but rarely use it - it's more for the convenience of guests although I admit I used it once or twice during last December's Rohastsu intensive practice period.

Traditionally, there's nothing wrong with seiza - it's still zazen, but just kneeling instead of sitting. Everybody's different and every body is different, and for this old man who's sacrificed some or most of his flexibility by sitting behind a desk for some 30 years, and then loafing in retirement for the past seven, cross-legged sitting is difficult. 

Difficult, but not impossible, and today I decided to sacrifice some comfort and sat cross-legged, not in the lotus style with each foot on the opposite thigh (now that's impossible for me) but relaxed, with each foot on the floor near, but not on, the opposite knee. For the record, I used to sit that way regularly from like 2003 to at least 2013. 

It was a bit intense, especially at first, but I could feel the tendons and muscles or whatever stretching back out. Strangely, the meditation periods seemed to go by faster as my mind was focused more on my body than in idle daydreams.

There's no "right" or "wrong" posture for meditation - whatever works for you is fine. In my case, I want to take charge of my body and reorient myself to sit cross-legged while I still can, before the triple threat of sickness, old age, and death dictate that I can't sit at all anymore. Besides, it's good to have goals and something tangible and physical to work on as I practice my zazen.         

       

 

Separation of the First Stage, 14th Day of Midsommar, 526 M.E. (Deneb): At the risk of sounding repetitive, another beautiful day today. High in the mid 70s, low humidity, perfectly clear, +25-mile visibility.

I walked a 6.2-mile Quincy in the afternoon. I did take a shortcut this time, and even though I shaved off 1.5 miles, my phone recorded only 0.7 miles less than it did on Wednesday, when I avoided that shortcut. There are mileposts along the route, so I'm fairly confident I actually walked at least eight miles on Wednesday and 6.5 miles today.

Regardless, my walking hours are also my podcast listening time and today I listened to a very good conversation between Buddhist scholar and author Pema Chödrön and podcaster/journalist Ezra Klein. No great quotes to repeat and no new revelations for this old Zen student as it was fairly familiar ground to me, but it was still nice hearing them talk. Klein didn't quite come out as a Buddhist himself, but talked about his own meditation practice and techniques. Okay, one quote (from Ezra!): "Meditation is not a vacation from irritation."

It was one week ago today that I buried Eliot. I still half expect to see him whenever I walk into my den/tv room (his favorite hangout). I still am not quite sure what to do with myself at 7:00 pm (his routine feeding time). I'm more surprised than not that I don't hear his meows after the clock radio starts in the morning but I'm still laying in bed. There's no one to remind me when I've spent too much at the computer.

I miss him.   

  

 

Day of Fallacies, 13th of Midsommar, 526 M.E. (Castor): Yet another beautiful, picture-perfect day, continuing the long string of lovely weather we've been enjoying here in the South. I voted today, the penultimate day of early voting for the Georgia primary. I wonder how many more years I'll be able to freely vote, or at least vote in meaningful elections  

For some reason, the New York Times ran a long think piece today about Buddhism in Nepal, the first of a three-part "travel series" about the spread of Buddhism across Asia. The series, titled The Prince's Journey, is written by Aatish Taseer of Delhi, India, and future installments will cover Buddhism in Thailand and in Taiwan. Long on history and providing a broad overview of Buddhist teachings, it as informative and well written, although I'd hardly call it "travel" journalism. 

I found it amusing that when the author asked a teacher of Newar Buddhism, the indigenous variant of Buddhism practiced in the Kathmandu Valley, about the tension between the different branches of Buddhism, he was told, “When you look at a tree, you don’t concentrate on its different branches. You try and see the tree as a whole.” And then readers responded in the comments section with complaints that the author had overlooked this movement or that school or some other specific teacher or writer, all focused on the branches and not the tree. To his credit, Taseer personally replied to a great many of the complaints with grace and in a dignified manner.  

Separately, I saw a post on Facebook today by jazz trumpeter Steven Bernstein (Lounge Lizards, Sexmob), who I saw at Big Ears last March playing the music of Sly Stone with his Millennial Territory Orchestra. He was announcing, in a roundabout way, his new project, the ResoNation Trio, and noted, "I love blowing into a piece of metal and creating a sound, and using that sound to interact with other musicians/artists and making something new."

"My trumpet teacher, Jimmie Maxwell, was a Buddhist," he wrote. "We would talk about trumpet satori." 

I hadn't heard of Jimmie Maxwell, but a quick peek at his Wikipedia page tells me Maxwell (1917 – 2002) was an swing trumpeter who played with Benny Goodman's band from 1939 to 1943, later performing on Goodman's tour of the Soviet Union in 1962. He played on hundreds of recordings and commercials from 1950 to 1980 and worked as a sideman for, among others, Duke Ellington, Oliver Nelson, Gerry Mulligan, Maynard Ferguson, and Quincy Jones. He worked as a studio musician for NBC, playing on Johnny Carson's Tonight Show (1963–73), contributed the solo trumpet theme on the soundtrack of The Godfather, and taught from the late 1970s onwards.

And apparently was a Buddhist.

 

Day of the Rainhouses, 12th of Midsommar, 526 M.E. (Betelgeuse): It's happening. Cheating Brian Kemp, who first got elected Governor of Georgia by suppressing minority votes as Secretary of State, had said that he would not redraw the State's electoral boundaries for this year’s elections (the primaries are on Tuesday). But today he called for a special session of the State Congress to redraw electoral maps for the 2028 election. Georgia is but the latest southern state to initiate new electoral maps after the Supreme Court’s dismantling of the Voting Rights Act.

Kemp said the session will focus on “enacting, revising, repealing, or amending” district lines for both the state legislature and congressional districts. Among other things, the Republicans may seek to eliminate the district of Democratic representative Sanford Bishop, a Black member of Congress who has served since 1993. 

The Supreme Court ruled last month that the districts Louisiana drew in accordance with Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, which prevents racial discrimination in voting, were an unconstitutional racial gerrymander. Effectively, the court’s decision dilutes Black and minority voting power, reversing years of civil-rights law.

My Arya Sansa list goes "John Roberts. Brett Kavanaugh. Clarence Thomas. Joseph Alito. Neil Gorsuch. Amy Boney Carrot. The Stable Genius. Mitch McConnell. And Aaron Judge," because the Yankees suck.  Also, not to forget the ladies: "Erica Kirk. Candace Owens. Kari Lake. Megyn Kelly. Lindsey Graham."

Meanwhile, another beautiful day today as the gorgeous weather here in Georgia continues. No rain, which is a drag, but day after day of temps in the 70s to very low 80s, low humidity, and clear skies, with pleasantly cool nights in the high 50s (good sleeping weather). I walked my usual 8½-mile Van Buren today, but for some reason the pedometer app on my iPhone only credited me with a 6½-mile Quincy. I swear I didn't take any shortcuts!    

 

The Wooden Works, 11th Day of Midsommer, 526 M.E. (Aldebaran): You can't hurry love. 

    

 

Day of the Creaking Aftermath, 10th of Midsommar, 526 M.E. (Helios): Firefighters have finally extinguished the Hwy. 82 wildfire in South Georgia, but the Pineland Road fire still covers 32,575 acres and is 87% contained. The drought continues and we're now 6.58 inches of rainfall below normal for this time of year. All indications still suggest that we're heading for a Super El Nino and the warming oceans will result in less mixing between the surface and deep waters, creating a phosphate shortage close to the surface, which creates favorable conditions for methane-producing microbes. Most of the methane produced through this process escapes to the atmosphere, and could almost double in the future under an aggressive global warming scenario. The Stable Genius, the twice-impeached, multiply-convicted felon and adjudicated rapist, is brazenly grifting off his presidency, and his crimes are woefully underreported in the press, ignored by the political left, and denied by the political right.    

All this, and the numb, empty feeling of life without Eliot in the house still lingers. It's like an extracted tooth, when the tongue can't stop probing the new void left behind.  

 

The Divine Versions, 9th Day of Midsommar, 526 M.E. (Electra): I track my meditation with the health app on my phone. Every second day, when I'm finished  with my sitting, I enter the start and finish times as "Mindfulness Minutes." Not that practice requires an app, but keeping a record adds to my motivation - if I miss a day, there will be a visible gap in the record (the app records the minutes as a bar graph on a time scale).

I could lie and add minutes on a day I didn't actually sit, but what would be the point of that? Then I wouldn't be able to trust the app and wouldn't have a record of my effort. 

Anyway, to get to the point, I sat today (3:14 to 4:44 pm), but I missed last Friday, the day I had Eliot euthanized. Last Friday was the first day I missed, other than when I was at Big Ears, since October 13, 2025. Since April 20, 2025, I've only missed three days (other than Big Ears) - May 16, when I was waiting all day for an AC repairman to arrive, October 13, when the young man who would have been my stepson if life had gone differently was in town, and last Friday, May 8, when Eliot left this realm of existence.

Of course, it certainly wasn't zazen (sitting meditation), but a day spent digging a grave for your pet while he's still alive but asleep in the house, and being present at the veterinarian as he receives the fatal injection that ends his life, and then putting that pet in the ground and filling the grave with earth, is an exercise in mindfulness and a profound contemplation of life-and-death. It's certainly a better alibi for missing 90 minutes of sitting that waiting for the repairman.      

 

Day of the World Tree, 8th of Midsommar, 526 M.E. (Deneb): Today was the first day in seventeen years without Eliot in the house. Weird. 

F'rinstance, when I woke up this morning, I was careful rolling over so as to not crush the cat that usually lies at the foot of my bed. Making my morning coffee, I kept expecting to see him catwalk into the kitchen to beg for a treat, you know, as long as I had the door open to that cabinet where the goodies are stored. Right now, it's approaching his feeding time, and it's strange not hearing him reminding me that it's almost time for dinner.

I gathered up and cleaned all his food dishes and water bowls today, as well as the various cardboard boxes scattered in corners around the house. I haven't put away the litter box yet - for some reason, that feels like the last and final act admitting he's gone for good

Eliot's health had been declining for over a year, with at least one vet suggesting squamous-cell carcinoma. But for the last week, he was barely able to get up at all, struggling to make occasional forays to the food dish and litter box. Other than that, he just spent the entire day curled up on a favorite chair. Thursday night, I saw him barely manage to make a simple one-foot leap from that chair to an end table, and then barely able to walk across that table to his water bowl, as if he was losing motor control of his legs. That's when I knew it was time. 

The vets were great, and had a special room set up for his departure with candles, a soothing white-noise generator, blankets, etc. They couldn't have been kinder, fussing over him with treats and head scratches to get him past his anxiety about being in a strange place. Or kinder to me, assuring me I was doing the right and humane thing. 

They gave the two of us a minute ("take as much time as you need") to say our goodbyes and then took him back to the O.R., or whatever it is back there, and gave him a sedative. They brought him back, asleep and wrapped in a blanket, and then with me present gave him a second injection that stopped his heart. He didn't flinch or react to the euthanasia and the vet, who had a finger on his pulse through the whole final procedure, announced "he's gone" just a few seconds after the injection. He died painlessly, comfortably, and quietly. 

I took his body home with me and placed him in a hole I had dug earlier in the day in the garden, next to where I buried his brother, Izzy. It was so difficult seeing him in the ground and to put the first shovelful of dirt over his body, and I can't say there weren't tears involved. Both cats now have heart-shaped gravestones next to their burial sites, which I can see from my kitchen window.

Impermanence is swift but our attachments can linger. 

Izzy died suddenly, unexpectedly, and apparently painlessly in his sleep, a winter afternoon nap from which he never awoke. Eliot died surrounded by loving people doing everything we could to keep him as comfortable as possible. 

I hope that when my time comes, it will be as painless and comfortable for me.

 

Day of the Holy Mountain, 7th of Midsommar, 526 M.E. (Castor): Impermanence is swift. 

Today I buried Eliot, age 17, my old tomcat, my feline friend and housemate, who had been in declining health for a year now. It was time. 

We won't see the likes of him again for a long while, and he will be missed.       

 

Day of the Marauders, 6th of Midsommer, 526 M.E. (Betelgeuse): Last night, we watched the storm front approach. Meteorologists were updating their social media posts every hour. The Tornado Watch went into effect around 10:00 pm, while the flash flood warning had been in effect since 4:00. The evening news advised to be prepared for power outages and I heard the distant rumble of thunder as I went to bed.

When it was all said and done and the storm had finally passed, only 0.50 inches of rain fell on Atlanta, 0.08 inches before midnight, and 0.42 after. 

The rainfall wasn't evenly distributed. Nearby Peachtree Dekalb Airport (PDK), seven miles northeast of here, saw 1.47 inches before midnight and 0.47 after. Peachtree City, Georgia, about 30 miles southeast of here, had 2.32 inches before midnight and about the same as PDK and here after. Columbus, Georgia, about 100 miles southeast of here, had 1.32 inches of rain before midnight and 2.94 inches after, setting a new record for this date going going back to 1903. 

Peachtree Creek crested about six inches above its pre-rain stage, but nowhere near flood stage (17 inches). No floods and no tornados, for which I'm grateful, just a lot of media-generated anxiety over, well, a rainy night in Georgia.  

From the beginning of time, the Buddha taught, all beings have mistakenly identified themselves with that of which they are aware. Controlled by their experience of perceived objects, they lose track of their fundamental mind. In Buddhism, the thinking mind is conditioned, impermanent, and ever-changing, but the fundamental mind is always present and is the true essence of the self.  

When we lose sight of the true essence of the self (the fundamental mind), we identify ourselves as the subject that is facing the objects we encounter, and we discriminate among them, evaluate them, and chase after or escape from them. Being deluded by the discriminative thinking mind and losing the fundamental mind is a fundamental cause of suffering.

Jingqing asked a monk, “What sound is that outside the gate?” The monk said, “The sound of raindrops.” Jingqing said, “Sentient beings are inverted. They lose themselves and follow after things.” 

Zen Master Dogen wrote, 

Just hearing,

Without extra mind,

The jewel-like raindrops

Dripping from the eaves

Are me.