FINDING BALANCE

ISN'T IT SOMETHING WE SEEK?

     I watched an 85 year old tennis player step lively to hit a shot played to his side.  He was out of balance as he swung and he struggled, in an instant, to maintain his upright position.  Another player, 80, who toddles a bit as he walks approached a ball dead on the court so as to retrieve it.  It was a slow, painful process to bend, reach and lift it so it could be put in play on the next serve, all the while maintaining balance.

     Babies struggle to find  balance as they begin to walk.  Age robs some of balance late in life.  It is an odd thing, neither this nor that,  but it is a place of precision in an infinite manner of places.  In humans, it is a relationship of our brain and neuromuscular structure.  In nature it manifests in exquisite and changing ways and as with all living things, someplace between light and dark, depending on the nature of the life.

"Deep in their roots, all flowers keep the light."

Theodore Roethke 

IS OUR PATH A BALANCED ONE?

     Societies struggle with balance; the rights of the individual and of social units, the balance of power, beliefs and values and the balance between civilization.

"Civilization itself is a certain sane balance of values."

Ezra Pound

PEACE AND MIND

     Finding peace of mind is a product of seeking balance, is it not?  We seek a balance in our emotional and spiritual being. 

     Winemakers must balance the elements and then find a balance between oak and grape and time and taste. 

     

We wonder about the balance of humanity and planet earth. 

     Susan Sontag wrote that the white race "...with its ideologies and inventions...has upset the ecological balance of the planet..."

     After chasing around the planet, witnessing all manner of human endeavor, it seems balance is both a physical principal and an innate longing or pursuit.  When things are out of balance, we suffer.  

     Keeping a balanced perspective was something my father taught.

Being balanced between work and play was something he and my mother stressed.  Being balanced in the gathering and presentation of information was the mandate of editors, news directors and publishers.  

     Finding a balance seems good advice to all of us, in whatever. But perhaps I'm a little out of balance, or out of bounds, and that is another matter isn't it?

NOW HERE IS A MATTER OF BALANCE AND SOMETHING YOU MAY NEVER HAVE THOUGHT OF OR SEEN-

Watch at least a moment of this. It is stunning. Link here.

http://www.flixxy.com/helicopter-cable-inspector.htm

TIME AND WINGS

MORNING WINGS

     An early tennis call will get you places and show you things you might otherwise miss.

Morning light is pure, infused with all the hopes of a day just dawning.

     A Monarch butterfly may share the quick taste of sweet light with you.

     Monarchs return to the Central Coast this season. This one is absorbed in the work of making the most of our Tea Tree bush.   A beautiful meditation on wing.

OTHER FLIGHTS AND PASSAGES

LIKE TIME RE-TOOLED

     New ticks from old time pieces have come to our place in the highlands.  Two family clocks with history are alive again with a cadence of the of time. It is a heartbeat of generations.

     This piece was a wedding gift in the 1899 Bernfeld-Schroeder wedding which led to the birth of Lana's mother Mabel in 1910. In 1911 a fire overtook the families general store and home in Smithson Indiana.  Mabel was vacated to beneath an apple tree while family and neighbors moved objects out of the burning wood frame building. This cast iron clock, painted to look like marble, was pulled from the home and placed under the apple tree with baby Mabel.  

     This banjo clock is from my side of the family, the Cochrun-Jones connection.  This piece hung in the house of my grandmother Mary Elizabeth Jones Cochrun, the widow of Thomas E.,  who shared the house with her sisters, Anna Jones and her husband Edward Cochrun who was also my grandfather's brother, Martha Jones McGibbeny and her husband Clarence Pete McGibbeny, and their widowed sister Sarah.

     It is a Warwick Timepiece, made by the New Haven Clock company.  New Haven was an off shoot of a company formed by Chauncey Jerome, noted for creating the first inexpensive American brass clock movement.  Jerome was America's largest clock maker by the 1850's.  Business deals, buy outs and permutations led to the move to New Haven Conn. in 1844.  A business partnership with P.T. Barnum led to Jerome's financial demise in 1885. Before that Jerome and his New Haven Clock Company produced thousands of clocks.  In 1860 it produced 170 thousand clocks.  In the 1880's they had sales offices in Chicago, Liverpool and Yokohama.

     My grandmother, born in England in 1879, came with her sisters and mother to American in 1889.  Her father and eldest brother were already here.  The clock could have been purchased in England, as they lived in Warwick and sailed from Liverpool. Where it was purchased is lost in history.  But it has been in the family for decades.  A New Haven catalog from the 1930's lists the Warwick as Mahogany finished with eight-day lever timepiece movement. I remember the clock from my childhood visits to the "house," as we referred to the large house in Muncie Indiana where they all lived in the manner of an English boarding house.

     It has hung in our home for years but it was not until Jay and Susan Foreman of the Hands of Tyme in Cambria took it under their care that it began to beat out a rhythm of time.  We thank Jay and Susan for bringing old time to life and for their helpful research. 

    

  

  

POWER...

IN THIS POST

FORCE AGAINST FORCE

-NATURE

-POLITICS 

-HUMAN FOIBLES

WHERE THE CREEK MEETS THE SEA

     Santa Rosa Creek, which flows from the highlands of the Santa Lucia range, is a primary water source for this area of the Central California Coast.  Here it makes its grand spring entry into the Pacific at the famous Moonstone Beach.

The image above is looking east, toward Cambria, the direction from which the Santa Rosa Creek flows.

The rain swollen Creek has come to the sea with enough force to erode Moonstone Beach and create mini canyons.  As the season turns to summer, the power of the Pacific will remodel the canyons to a smooth shoreline again. 

HOT TOPICS

Reporting and producing for as long as I have has nicked me with the need to sound off from time to time.  Maybe it is self defense.  I'm thick skinned so let me know what you think.

WIKI LEAKS

IT IS NOT A CLEAR PICTURE

     I've filed many Freedom Of Information requests over the years.  I tend to believe most of what our governments do should be transparent.  There are exceptions.  

     Case in point-Gene Cretz.  He has been our Ambassador to Libya, the first since 1972.  He is in trouble because of the Wiki leaks of the State Department cables.  He authored a cable about Moammar Gadhafi where he noted the leaders reliance on a voluptuous Ukrainian nurse.  Part of his role was to observe and report on Ghadafi and he was doing so when he described the strongman's personal proclivities.  

     It is foolish that Cretz should be in trouble for doing his job, and for communicating in a completely appropriate way.  This is a case where the leaks have created a casualty, needlessly.   Our State Department and Intelligence officers need to communicate with clarity and without worry about how a working document, a work process, or a report may appear to a wider public, including in the case of Cretz the Libyan government.  These communications were part of a larger picture and were intended to be pieces of information to help finalize understandings and perhaps eventually policy positions.

     In this case the leaks did damage and compromised the ability of the US to understand the behavior of an unstable world leader.

SUNSET FOR A SAILOR-CUT ADRIFT

     I can't defend, nor even explain, the behavior of US Navy Capt. Owen Honors who performed a series of comedy sketches on the USS Enterprise, but the US Navy

is pathetic and inept in the way it has handled the matter.

     The performances were more than three years ago and the Navy is taking action only now that video tapes have been made public.  Three years after the fact.  It leads me to conclude the Navy believes Capt. Honors behavior was fine, until it became public.  There are a lot of problems with that reality.  If Capt. Honors is sacked, then so should several officers who were his superiors.  Honors may have been inappropriate, I'll leave that to you to decide. But I think the Navy is being chicken shit!

IT'S NEW AGE

THE AESTHETE VS THE ACTION HERO

     Jerry Brown has taken office as Governor of California in a mostly quiet way.  There was no big inaugural bash.  His first order of business was a strong message that sacrifices will be necessary and hard choices and decisions need to be made to bring the budget under control and to revitalize the state.  Arnold Schwarzenegger said much the same thing when he took office.

     There are differences between the men and their style.  Arnold was a big operator with lots of staff.  Brown is coming back almost like a single Ninja in comparison.

Arnold talked about action, action, action.  One of Brown's first actions was to remove

Arnold's cigar smoking tent in the plaza off the Governor's office.  Stay tuned.

BUSY AS...

IN A NICE OFFICE

       While much of America riddles about the fish and bird die off in Arkansas, California Bees have taken an interest in early blooms.

     This character was one of many that swarmed a Tea Tree bush, working some of nature's magic.

     I wonder if the home colony and hive may not be one of those white boxes pictured in a previous blog.

THEY ARE ALSO GETTING BUSY IN WASHINGTON

     And that opens an entire new field of wonderment.  It seems the GOP in the House is sure to flex its muscles early, challenging the President on health care.  The professional shouting class, the TV pundits and blogging experts, appear to be ready to ratchet up the clamor as an opening act of the 2012 Presidential election.  But, are the rest of us? Are voters and non voters ready for new rancor or could a political fatigue set in?  

     Winter, harsh weather, unemployment and economic nerves have been served in abundance. Is political nastiness really what people want?  Stay tuned.

WHILE YOU ARE MILDLY DEPRESSED

     Here is a visually stunning though troubling look at what has become of a once great American city.  This reminds me of scenes I saw in Havana.

There are 16 photos of almost unimaginable reality. Link here:

AND THERE IS NOTHING LIKE A CAT SHADOW TO CLOSE A POST

UNLESS THERE IS ANOTHER, AND IN THIS CASE THE MOTHER

     

BLUE IS BACK

WHEN SMILES RETURN

     Even as they talk of miserable weather plaguing much of the world and debate global weather changes, people here on the Central California Coast have responded to the return of blue sky with improved attitudes.

     In most cases people seem to be more in love with life here than almost anywhere we've been, and we have sampled a lot of this blue planet.

     Being close to the real "big blue," the Pacific, also produces an impact.  It may be simply taking the time to watch the waves, or, in this time of year, the clouds, or being infused with the fresh breeze.  I like to think the impact is molecular, at least to the point of having a mellowing affect.  Today people were sea side and breathing it in.

THE YOUNGEST IS THE OLDEST

    Jerry Brown, once California's youngest Governor, is now the state's oldest.  The California Republic has issues that most of the rest of the world knows.  Stay tuned.

ONE MORE NOTE ABOUT THE FUNNY MAN WHO SHAMED THE GOP

     There is now a parade of praise for Jon Stewart.  As you may remember from a December post, we noted that Stewart was the real hero of the closing days of the last congress.  Since then many others have chided in.  Here is the latest and they dare use the name Murrow!  In the New York Times no less

WHAT ARE YOU CHEWING ON?

     This is the real west and in this region partner, the cattle-those little dots on the slopes- and the horses eat real food.

     I've had Scots raised Angus, Brazilian, Kobe, fine steak house aged beef on several continents, fresh bush kill and lesser offerings, but the best I've tasted remains the free range cattle grown in this area.

     If you have not paid attention to this issue, here's some background on what is happening to too much of the food chain.

This is important. Please get up to speed. This link is a start-

IN THE MEANTIME WE WISH YOU SUN-AT LEAST THE PROMISE

This happy topiary may call to mind those lyrics from Paul Simon

"April, come she will...."

AN AMPLE AMOUNT

MEASURING UP

     We've had another 3.8 inches of rain in the last 24 hours. In this California rain season, starting in July, we've had 20 inches of precipitation.  We had a trace in July and a trace in early October.  The measurable rain didn't begin until late October.  December produced 10.7 inches, one of the wettest on record. 

     The 20 inches we've recorded thus far is more than we had in total during each of our  first two years in California. This time last year we recorded 7 inches on the way to a yearly total of 25 plus.

     The mountain sides are green and the streams are running briskly.  The rain is appreciated, though the forecast for sunshine this week is welcomed. My thanks to Frank and Sandy of Falls Church for the gift of the rain gauge, which has helped me become such a fanatic.

This is the artist table at the Windward Vineyard near Paso Robles. It is featured here because my sweetheart Lana is the artist who will be on display in the beautiful tasting room until the end of March.  If you'd like to learn more about here Plein Aire show or her work as an artist you can link here.  She is my favorite artist.

                         

2011

IT BEGINS

A cleansing and nourishment

A ritual

And a friend.

Be well and be happy.