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back up - k never mind, I thought it was weird that both you and Casey couldn't see - probably just went down for a short period of time.

.. WOW.. they've magically reappeared.. (not just yours, Cate*.. all of them).. okay, maybe not so magically.. thank you kindly, E....

... I shall post my thoughts soon, Mr. C., or should that be Mr. B?.. nahh.. I like the sound of Mr. C. better..

.. hi Cate, hi I.F.. will think more about this.. sterility issue.. (hard to even utter the word.. oh, but that doesn't mean you can't -- oh, never mind..)..

... oh, I'm kind of glad Georges wasn't involved.. I am trying to reform him, remember..

v i o l e t (flower).. (putting away that Hemlock tincture 'til something more serious happens)..


* Cate.. I'm assuming you removed yours.. (I'm going nuts today)..

It was simpler than I thought. The DNS update wasn't affected, the place just pointed the domain to an "Expired..." page so only had to point it back.

Anyway, I'm not sure how the siring works with mules, I've heard the males are s______ too.

The man is quite a character, an accent right out of a Western. He has a camp up there and a home, there is the infrastructure for a huge subdivision going up on his land (I understand it's his) for summer homes. They don't plow that far up during the winter - or haven't yet.

As he was talking the conversation was peppered with constant "Now don't bite, Bradley"'s as Bradley was apparently impatient to be moving. Finally Bradley locked his teeth on the man's saddlebags and was quiet for a while.



Then it started up again: "Now don't bite, Bradley". He said he lost two mule foals before Bradley, who's "been bulletproof since he hit the ground". Bradley loves to have his ears rubbed, which the man said most mules don't like.



Then they rode off into the sunset. :-)

Casey

.. Casey, it's just so exciting getting your photos and stories.. and that portrait of the rugged looking outdoorsman -- our Western dude -- is just a wonderful photograph.. you really have an eye there, you know.. oh, and he's not just a Western character.. he's rather Hemingway-ish methinks..



... well, I have all sorts of things stirring around in my head.. oh, but first.. while I'm so so touched that you and E are out braving the elements just for little old moi... please please please be careful.. remember the three little kittens.. smelling the rat.. well that translated to exercising caution.. who knows what rat fink forces are at work in this world, wanting to deter earnest Signs of God gatherers.. so please be careful you two (!).. oh, and I am very good at guilt.. so you don't need to throw more good wood on that pile for me -- should something happen, that is.. so.. yes.. travel as you may, but steer clear of.. well, mudslides for one.. (geesh.. as Cate would say)..

.. now, while I have some comprehensive things to put together on a lot of things.. (the things stirring around in my head after looking at all the goodies you've brought me).. I won't get to that tonight.. You should understand that if we want quality in this thread, then all avid sign seekers must be patient.. (just as lightening doesn't strike just when you would like it to).. What I will do.. is post a poem of mine to go with one of your lovely cloudscapes (which I've decided to double up on, for experimental reasons).. I chose this particular poem since it touches on that void again.. that abyss.. which I'll get to soon, C.. so.. hang in.. Oh, I've posted this poem on another thread of mine, once upon a time.. but it seems its time has come 'round once again.. oh, and the poem continues after the second appearance of the same photo..



.. okay, well, the poem is below..
.. signing out for now,
v i o l e t (flower).. in need of.. you guessed it.. a wee cuppie a' tea.. (as my Scottish grandmother used to say)..




In ruins


Cattails through the marsh plumes
signaled an imbalance; of that
my mother was
certain

and we grew accordingly,

for the love of her, for the
wanting.

just as small hands don’t
know of such things

and harm gets done, and no
revenge taken.


But the sound flowed under
Red Bridge

its paint gone even then, its danger
with it –– though only to us

children, whose fearlessness knew
no end

just as time knows better, and
we adults

lie fearful before
the void:

awaiting wholeness.


(Small hope in wondrous
things; small hope

clinging to madness, to
the wounds there

once forsaken.)



I don’t know why this should come
to me now

who is it
that reads into the night?

that follows the swords of child’s play

touching the void

loving the indigent, the lost
within us

keeping close the
sacred

not falling for the harm
done


v i o l e t, 2004




.. morning edit.. thought I'd add the portrait of our Hemmingway..

.. I love the pic, Casey.. it feels so serene.. I'm working right now, but will catch up with all sign related matters 'n such later..


.. signed.. v i o l e t (flower).. (on her second very strong IRISH Breakfast tea of the morning).. (as you can see.. I'm imagining myself out there too)..

Not much going on today sign-wise. I think you're getting a break so you can catch up, Lord only knows how busy you must be these days.

But since today's trip ended up with us spotting another carrion eater, I thought I'd post some photos from the trip, starting with a panorama (I found exposure lock on the camera!) of the Hurricane Bench, or Sheep's Ridge, or whatever other names we call it here.

Because the image is so wide I had to use a link:

http://viablesoftware.com/casey/panorama.htm

Here's a detail of the clouds over Zion:


The clouds over Smithsonian Butte (named by a member of the Powell expedition down the Colorado River who thought it resembled the Smithsonian bastions in Washington, DC:


As we drove through Rockville I spotted an angle on the Zion formation I've never stopped to photograph before, but today it had nice clouds around it. As it turned out, the road I turned left onto is the Rockville Cemetary Road. E loves old cemetaries for some reason, so insisted we stop so she could walk around.


The cool clouds:


The only carrion eating bird I spotted today!


And our carrion rolling, sign-sniffing sidekick:


Until tomorrow, my dear... :-)

Casey

.. Hi Casey.. more amazing pics (!).. and a panoramic shot -- my god!.. and such a nice one of Mr. Darcy..

... I shall return a bit later hopefully.. I'm run a bit ragged right now, but I have something of a coherent something to put together for you..



fondly,
v i o l e t (flower).. still Irish Breakfast.. but with a lovely breeze coming through my window, as it's a beautiful fall-ish day outside.. (finally).. you know, this picture seems to me to be a dream..

Here's a couple more, one zoomed a little further out of that one you like:


And a close up of the one over that Zion angle, it looks to me like a horse snorting.


Glad you liked the panorama even though it was just patched together. I'll watch for panorama opportunities and see if I can keep a little more level as I turn!

Casey

Wonderful thread. Thanks!

If you can't, just say you can't... Don't hold up more hoops for her to jump through. :-)

Do you need my address?

Casey

Hi Violet... I think Myra's back in town (she doesn't like me, she says I judged her as "evil" though nothing could be further from the truth about who I judged as "evil" at the time)...

But I wanted to share today with you anyway.

It all started when I was outside in our front "yard" and looked up and saw this tiny cloud shaped in the style of a petroglyph drawing of a Bighorn Sheep. Drawings like this are pretty familiar here, as businesses use them a lot to make themselves look "southwest".

I thought it was pretty cool and it got me thinking about the only place I've seen Bighorn Sheep in the area, which is the the upper part of the Zion main park. That's that part you come to after driving through the 1.1 mile tunnel they cut through the sandstone cliffs back in the 20's or 30's I think. Maybe a CCC project (I'll look it up). Last winter we saw two young Bighorn Sheep up there for the first time, but it was sunset and the photos I tried to get were completely blurred.

Here is a picture I found online that looks almost exactly like that cloud:



So I figured that was as good a destination as any, because Zion and environs seem central to this little endeavor (since I can't successfully get anywhere else to look for signs!).

And what a day! It was just wonderful everywhere you could see here. Clouds, clouds, and more clouds... In fact I did another panorama, this time from the La Verkin Overlook:

http://www.viablesoftware.com/casey/panorama2.htm

Here are some Zion shots from today:

"Eagle Crags", which is the Zion end of what the Mormon Pioneers named "Canaan Mountain":


A couple of the rock formations opposite the road that snakes up to the Zion Tunnel:



Some of the sandstone formations in the top part of Zion:


And guess what we saw up top, right by the road! There was a small herd of them:


I took a movie, but as soon as I started it rolling a huge tourist bus pulled up with a very loud motor, so I got a movie of Bighorn Sheep behinds walking away! (Please forgive the shakiness.)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zIL963HmAeA

Not exactly a unique happening, though, except for us three.

Just outside of the park we stopped for something to munch on, and I spotted this pickup at sunset. That's Zion from the other end behind it, the east gate.


In their little garden out front they had a few of these. I don't know if they're violets or not, but they're violet:


I'll leave out the Buffalo Burger place where they have their own buffalo herd (they don't use them for burgers though).

And on the way home, just where the road coming down from the Tunnel levels out, we had another great surprise, such a tame fellow taken by the light of our headlights and through the windshield:


Just say the words and I won't be pestering you. A PM is fine.

Casey

.. Oh my god, Casey, you're not pestering me (!).. You don't know how lovely it is for me to see all your beautiful cloudscapes and landscapes and birds and animals when sipping my tea in the morning.. I feel privileged.. so 'nuff said on that, if you please..

.. oh, and thanks to Jon.. and welcome to this back room at ye’ old forum.. (it’s where all the cool kids hang out, in case you were wondering)..



Casey.. this is just an enchanting photo.. even with the dessert shrubbery, I feel to be lost in the Black Forest..

.. I once had little toy versions of these sheep.. (at least I think they were the same).. and used to take them out every year at Christmas.. now perhaps I know what they were.. I think I'll research them a bit too some time.. I mean, to see a cloud in such a formation also sounds highly unusual, Casey..


ANYWAY.. ‘tis I who is being remiss here, but not for lack of interest or enthusiasm.. I’m busy on a deadline, and am tuckered out, and I’m not sure where my mind is at.. But.. having put in all such qualifiers, I will try to get to what had been swimming around in my head before..

Casey Butler wrote:Hollow me out, Violet, cast me into the abyss... Is it revenge. It's looking like revenge to my simple mind. I mean the reason for withholding reason.
Casey

NOW, I’m not too sure how you arrived at revenge here, but I believe the misunderstanding is useful to us.. so..

... maybe I can explain this abyss thing like this.. first off, well.. okay, here’s an aside..

ONCE UPON A TIME.. when I was but a wee violet flower, just in high school, as it happens.. there were a group of very cool kids known as "the heads".. They were into drugs of course.. LSD in particular.. and all were reading Carlos Casteneda.. And they were always making cryptic little jokes about sorcerers ‘n things.. and I never knew what they were giggling about.. They were in my art classes, so, although I wasn’t officially a head, and had never done acid, I was in their midst, so to speak.. But for some reason, I never took to reading Carlos Castenada.. not until years later.. as an adult..

.. anyhow.. I wound up dating one of the “heads”.. he was my first love, in fact.. (very handsome, I might add).. and we went off to different art schools, and eventually we broke up.. But I met with him again a few years after we parted.. We went to a diner.. just to have coffee and talk and catch up.. only, I realized fairly quickly, that the person I thought I had loved, and with whom I thought we shared a great deal, was no longer “there”.. And I mean that literally.. Apparently, after having done the amount of acid that he had, his brain was no longer functioning properly.. his synapses, it seems, were totally shot.. it was as if he were permanently on acid almost..

OKAY.. to try to get to my point here.. years later, as I started reading Casteneda in earnest.. (and yes, some believe the famed “anthropologist” fabricated his legendary Don Juan character, but whether that is true or not, what Don Juan has to say is very worth reading I find.. just as all good literature is..)..

.. anyway (my point being).. I was amazed to see how Don Juan, the Yacki Indian sorcerer, talked about and handled peyote (the LSD equivalent, for the purposes of my story).. He was mentoring Carlos (our famed anthropologist) in the ways of sorcery through the use of peyote.. only he was so very conservative with the substance.. He only administered the smallest amounts, and once Carlos returned from one of his Don Juan-tutored voyages to the cosmos, as it were, this Yacki Indian sorcerer took the very best care of his sorcery pupil, giving him cool damp mud packs, for example, and special herbs and broths 'n things.. allowing him days of sleep.. so to help his body and mind recover from the considerable strain these rather controlled (though totally out there) psychedelic experiences had on him..

INTERESTING.. how these misguided American teenagers missed the “conservative” part when it came to doing acid.. they partied and joked their way to.. well, in my boyfriend’s case.. total madness.. And yet they had the answer -- the true Yacki “knowledge” -- right at their finger tips, in the literature they'd been reading.. if only they had realized it*..

WHY I BRING THIS UP... is that “knowledge” itself maybe well be a substance like peyote.. When I speak of “unknowing”.. it doesn’t mean an action without knowledge.. as it would take knowing to understand the meaning of and correct use of “unknowing”.. Perhaps it’s something like the Buddhist idea of the “beginner’s mind,” when you approach the world with your sense of wonder and discovery intact -- that sense that children so often have.. Only, you’re not a child.. and in that sense you are aware of the dark side of things as well, and all the perils involved.. which is something I tried to get at in that last poem I posted..

… I believe I already quoted this, not sure if it was on this thread.. something about true wisdom being knowing what to overlook.. For my purposes here, this could in some sense be interpreted to mean that pursuing Truth with a capital T can be dangerous.. You cannot take on that which you are not ready for.. For any serious journey.. (and you know this concerning your car Silver, at any rate).. one must be prepared..

AND STILL.. there are moments when we must trust as well.. we must trust that we are ready to take that leap.. ready to let go of what feels safe (though I don’t mean in terms of mudslides, and emergency breaks, etc. – if you please!!).. No..

.. of course, articulating precisely what I DO mean is difficult.. Anyway, I think you are half way there.. (and, by the way, I'm not saying I'm "there" either)..



.. but you, Casey, live in a terrain that beckons you to a kind of wonder not as easily had elsewhere.. and you are in some sense aware of that.. and are allowing yourself to be taken by that.. and by the world’s incumbent sense of mystery.. and discovery..


THIS IS THE END OF PART I of what I’d like to say, as I need to do some work now..


.. and this is just the nicest biggest picture of the loveliest little pansy.. purple and velvety, just like a..
v i o l e t (flower).. Irish Breakfast again.. (nice 'n strong.. to keep me going)..


* later note .. when I say that these teenagers had the answer, they at the very least (having been so enamored of Don Juan, after all) might have understood and respected the potency of the substance they were toying with.. I mean, as compared to those teenagers who had no Don Juan to defer to..

.. okay, Casey.. will get to PART II soon..

V. and Casey,

This is currently my favourite online journal/blog.

Casey I'll say it again – your photos are wonderful! Many years ago we drove from Vancouver to New Mexico with our kids (who were in their early teens then), your images recalled the Utah and Colorado mesa landscapes, and I do remember being charmed by the clouds – especially those little 'floaters' with the puffy tops and flat bottoms. The horizon seems much farther and clearer in those places, and even more so in New Mexico.

My favourite art work of all times is in Utah – Robert Smithson's 'Spiral Jetty' in Great Salt Lake. Occasionally we fly south to Florida via Salt Lake City, and I'm always craning to see if I can spot it when we fly over the Lake, but no luck to date.
V., re. Castaneda, I agree – it doesn't matter whether Don Juan was a compilation of pilfered wisdom (except that CC obtained his degree in anthropology through his field work on the first couple of Don Juan books!), regardless, the poesy of the wisdom appeals.

My favourite of DJ's 'wisdom' (paraphrased):

One day, when Carlos and Don Juan took a long hike in the mountains, they came to a very narrow ravine between two mountainsides, so narrow that they had to walk single file. Don Juan walked ahead, and Carlos, noticing that his shoelace was untied, bent to tie it. Just as he stopped and bent down, a large boulder dislodged and came crashing down to land inches in front of him, and just behind Don Juan. Don Juan said to a shaken Carlos: 'Today fate had you stopping to tie your shoelace, and today that act saved your life; but another day, you may stop again to tie a shoelace, and a boulder may crash down right on top of you and squash you. Understand that you have no control of anything in this situation except the act of tying your shoelaces – make sure that you tie them impecccably.'

Edited to say, that on this Forum at least, I think that ~Greg has tied his shoelaces impeccably.