Austin Summer and Water Needs

Austin summer sky, originally uploaded by carlmc.

If the fence line wasn’t in this picture, you might mistake this sunset for Africa. I don’t remember a summer this hot. Of course, I’m getting older and the heat seems to worse than it is…at least that’s what I tell myself. However, the reality is that it’s freakin’ hot and for most of us it means a little higher electric bill for the A/C.

For the poorest among us who do not have any air conditioning, or worse who live on the street this heat is unbearable and deadly. And, remember many of those who suffer are children. But, we can help in a small but important way by giving a little time and/or money. Our friends at Mobile Loaves and Fishes are working on stop gap measures to provide water to those who most need it. Alan Graham has a short video on the situation at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IZdmujSCO34&feature=related
Here is a link to their main site http://www.mlfnow.org

Keepin’ it COOL in Austin

Here’s a great place in Austin to beat the heat…Know where it is?

Past as Prologue

I’m a visual learner, teach a visual medium, am bombarded by visual memories…

We’re going back to the scene of the crime, 5 years ago we moved back to Austin after spending a tough but wonderful time in Aspen growing and learning who we needed to become in the next phase of our lives. We wouldn’t trade our experiences there for anything in the world, it has helped shape us into our present.

Every summer the kids beg us to go back, to see and experience what they can only vaguely remember. We tell the stories, they love the memories they don’t always possess…

So, this summer we’re going back. We’ll meander our way through the west Texas desert, up through the caverns, UFO’s, and adobe of New Mexico into…

the beauty of the San Juans’s and our first love affair with Colorado in Telluride (I remember the cool evening of a July 4th watching the bombs burst over the canyon against the backdrop of Bridal Veil Falls) into…

Aspen to visit old friends and places including the ‘teacher’s ranch’ we lived on and the Woody Creek Tavern. The sprinklers downtown and the trails across the mountains will spring forth the memories and the stories and it’ll be good to remember who we were and what we learned in that place and from those people.

Then, we shall return home to resume our daily practices and for that I am grateful because we are where we need to be and not everybody is so fortunate…

Poems…Trees and Other Such Matters

sunset_thru_trees, originally uploaded by carlmc.

Sunlight falls where it may
Shadows fall at will
Green springs forth and
Pathways lead us between

————————————————–

i thank you God for most this amazing…

i thank You God for most this amazing
day: for the leaping greenly spirits of trees
and a blue true dream of sky;and for everything
which is natural which is infinite which is yes

(i who have died am alive again today,
and this is the sun’s birthday; this is the birth
day of life and love and wings: and of the gay
great happening illimitably earth)

how should tasting touching hearing seeing
breathing any–lifted from the no
of all nothing–human merely being
doubt unimaginable You?

(now the ears of my ears awake and
now the eyes of my eyes are opened)

–e.e. cummings

Pink Sand Castle

Thanks to our generous in-laws we spent a couple of days at the Don CeSar in St Pete Beach Florida
I took this photo from the beach…

U.S. Open Golf

Golf, originally uploaded by carlmc.

One of my favorite things about Father’s Day weekend is the US Open. Nothing better than watching the best in the world mix it up with the qualifiers and amateurs. Only in America do we open our national championship up to anyone capable of qualifying.

So, yes it’s okay to dream…to look into the future at what might be even if it seems impossible, it is possible. Only in America…

FYI…thinking about trying to make to next year’s championship at Pebble Beach. California Dreamin’…

What Does the Future Hold for Us?

What Does the Future Hold for Us?, originally uploaded by carlmc.

Just listening to David Dark’s new book
“The Sacredness of Questioning Everything” last night and am glad to report this conversation is taking place. We must continue to ask ’sacred questions’ because it is in asking the questions that we learn most about ourselves, others, and God.

It is not only the future we are searching, but how best to proceed in the present…

NASA in the Pod

NASA in the Pod, originally uploaded by carlmc.

Can you imagine 3 men squeezed into this capsule? No way Jose!!!

From Allan Ramsay, “An Ode to the Memory of Sir Isaac Newton” (1727)

This is one of many poems expressing the conviction that so great a man of Newton would surely be able to see other planets at close range on his way to Heaven.

The God-like man now mounts the sky,
Exploring all yon radiant spheres;
And with one view can more descry,
Than here below in eighty years.

Tho’ none, with greater strength of soul,
Could rise to more divine a height,
Or range the orbs from pole to pole,
And more improve the humane sight.

Now with full joy he can survey
These worlds, and ev’ry shining blaze,
That countless in the Milky Way
Only through glasses shew their rays.

St Pete’s

St Pete’s, originally uploaded by carlmc.

We’re headed to St Petersburg FL in the morning for a couple of days at the beach. I hope to catch a sunset and a sunrise while there to match the beauty of this sunset as Allyson exited the water at Cocoa Beach last night.

THE SEA OF SUNSET.

This is the land the sunset washes,
These are the banks of the Yellow Sea;
Where it rose, or whither it rushes,
These are the western mystery!

Night after night her purple traffic
Strews the landing with opal bales;
Merchantmen poise upon horizons,
Dip, and vanish with fairy sails.

–Emily Dickinson

Cocoa Beach Sunset

Cocoa Beach Sunset, originally uploaded by carlmc.

The kids played in the surf until the sun set in the horizon, and they still didn’t want to leave. One of lives greatest pleasures is watching your children play and experience new things. Time stands still in those moments…